Incidence Rate and Epidemiological Status of Tuberculosis in Kerman City in 2018

Tuberculosis is a life-threatening infectious disease mainly caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Determining the incidence of tuberculosis and treating sick people is one of the important strategies to prevent the occurrence of the disease and accelerate the process of achieving the goals of sustainable development to reduce cases of tuberculosis.

This is a descriptive-analytical cross-sectional study. The information is extracted from the recorded data of the tuberculosis care system and a researcher-made checklist with questions from patients as well as health system staff.

The total number of tuberculosis cases was 89, of which 57.3% were female. The mean age was 61.71 years. The cases of pulmonary tuberculosis were 78.7% and the others were extrapulmonary. The overall incidence of tuberculosis and smear-positive cases in Kerman in 2018 were equal to 11.4 and 6.1 per 100,000 population, respectively. Also, the incidence of negative and extrapulmonary tuberculosis cases in 2018 was equal to 1.2 and 2.2 people per 100,000 population, respectively.

These findings showed that the incidence of tuberculosis in Kerman is slightly higher than the national average, however, this small amount requires further investigation and survey of the causes and finally measurements to reduce the incidence of this disease.