[Epidemiology of tuberculosis in the world and in Turkey]

Tuberculosis is the most important public health problem in all over the world. Currently, it is reported that 8 million new cases occur each year in the developing countries and 80% of these cases are between age 15-60 years old. It is estimated that there are about 2 million adult deaths annually from tuberculosis in developing countries, which accounts for a quarter of avoidable adult deaths and a prevalence of almost 16 million people with active tuberculosis, half of whom have significant disability as a result of the disease. The global epidemiologic pattern of tuberculosis have changed as a result of AIDS epidemic and development and spread of multiple drug resistant tuberculosis strains. In the developing world, the rates of tuberculosis patients show different patterns. In many locations, one third or more of the population are infected with tuberculosis and incidence rates of newly diagnosed tuberculosis are more than 300 cases per 100,000 subjects in a part of Africa. In the United States, 6% of the population is infected with tuberculosis bacilli and the number of tuberculosis cases were reported as 15,591 in 2001. In Turkey, between 1998-2003 the notification rate decreased from 30 to 25 cases per 100,000 subjects. In this review article, epidemiology of tuberculosis in the world and in Turkey has been summarized.