DOI: https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-61562/v1
China has made progress in tuberculosis control, but this disease remains a burden in many regions of China. We performed time-series analysis to examine changes in the rates of newly notified and newly smear-positive cases of tuberculosis in different regions of China from 1997 to 2017 and assessed the effect of the current control program.
National and provincial notification data on tuberculosis from 1997 to 2017, which covers 31 provinces in mainland China, were extracted from the Chinese public health science data center. The annual percentage changes in newly notified and smear-positive cases were analyzed using a joinpoint regression method.
There were 17,823,330 newly notified tuberculosis cases from 1997 to 2017, with the greatest number in 2005. A total of 6,378,785 of these cases (35.79%) were smear-positive cases. Most provinces had significant declines in newly notified and smear-positive cases during the most recent years. The declines in newly notified cases were faster in the eastern and central provinces than in the western provinces.
The burden of tuberculosis has been declining throughout China during recent years, but tuberculosis in western China continues to be a public health emergency that needs to be urgently addressed. Effective prevention and control strategies are needed for regions with high disease burdens and those with increasing or unchanging numbers of newly notified and smear-positive cases of tuberculosis.
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