[The state of tuberculosis in Germany in 2000]

Tuberculosis is one of the leading infectious diseases globally besides HIV/AIDS and malaria. Around 8 million people per year develop active tuberculosis, of whom 2 million eventually die of the disease. Of special importance to Germany is the epidemiologic situation in the former Soviet Union, where new infections are rising steeply. This region is also a hot spot for the development of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. In 2000, the WHO registered already 273 000 cases of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis worldwide. In Germany the tuberculosis situation is stable. 9 064 persons (910 less than 1999) had tuberculosis in the year 2000. 5 271 cases were tuberculosis of the respiratory tract with detection of Mycobacteria tuberculosis. In 2 264 cases registered as tuberculosis of the respiratory tract, Mycobacteria tuberculosis could not be detected. 1 529 persons developed extrapulmonary tuberculosis. The highest incidences were found among the elderly. One third of the tuberculosis patients were born outside Germany. Resistance to antituberculous drugs also increased slowly in Germany. A study of the DZK, although with small numbers, demonstrated an increase of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis from 1.2 % (1996) to 1.7 % (2000), which also influenced the treatment outcome. With rising resistance rates, the treatment success decreased from 77.5 % in fully susceptible to 59.5 % in multidrug-resistant cases.