[Risk management of tuberculosis in medical institutions]

As tuberculosis incidence is still high (23.3 per 100,000 in 2004) and infection control measures in hospitals are not so complete that about 8 or more nosocomial group infections are reported annually in these 10 years in Japan. Another reason of rather frequent occurring of group infection is that actual status of tuberculosis infection of medical staff remained unclear for long time because diagnosis of tuberculosis infection is almost impossible due to so wide and so long implementation of BCG vaccination in this country. To improve the present circumstances, the author has discussed on the recent theory and control measures of infection control introducing examples of nosocomial infections and results of studies carried out in many countries in these 10 years.