Tuberculosis notifications in Australia, 2012 and 2013

Authors

  • Cindy Toms Vaccine Preventable Diseases Surveillance Section, Health Emergency Management Branch, Office of Health Protection, Department of Health, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory
  • Richard Stapledon South Australian Tuberculosis Services, Royal Adelaide Hospital, Adelaide, South Australia
  • Justin Waring Western Australian Tuberculosis Control Program, Department of Health, Perth, Western Australia
  • Paul Douglas Immigration Health Branch, Australian Government Department of Immigration and Border Protection, Sydney, New South Wales
  • National Tuberculosis Advisory Committee
  • Communicable Diseases Network Australia
  • Australian Mycobacterium Reference Laboratory Network

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.33321/cdi.2015.39.21

Keywords:

Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex, communicable disease surveillance, epidemiology, Australia

Abstract

The National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System received 1,317 tuberculosis (TB) notifications in 2012 and 1,263 notifications in 2013. This represents a rate of 5.8 per 100,000 population in 2012 and 5.5 per 100,000 population in 2013 and a reversal of the upward trend in TB incidence reported since 2007. In 2012 and 2013, Australia’s overseas-born population continued to represent the majority of TB notifications with an incidence rate of 19.5 per 100,000 and 18.4 per 100,000 respectively. The incidence of TB in the Australian-born Indigenous population has fluctuated over the last decade; however, it remained reasonably steady in 2012 and 2013 with an incidence rate of 4.5 per 100,000 and 4.6 per 100,000 respectively. The incidence of TB in the Australian-born non-Indigenous population has continued to remain low at 0.7 per 100,000 in 2012 and 0.8 per 100,000 in 2013. Australia continued to record only a small number of multi-drug resistant TB cases nationally (2012: n=20; 2013: n=22) of which nearly all were identified in the overseas-born population. This report demonstrates excellent and sustained control of TB in Australia and reflects Australia’s commitment to reducing the global burden of TB. Commun Dis Intell 2015;39(2):E217–E235.

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Published

01/06/15

How to Cite

Toms, Cindy, Richard Stapledon, Justin Waring, Paul Douglas, National Tuberculosis Advisory Committee, Communicable Diseases Network Australia, and Australian Mycobacterium Reference Laboratory Network. 2015. “Tuberculosis Notifications in Australia, 2012 and 2013”. Communicable Diseases Intelligence 39 (June):217-35. https://doi.org/10.33321/cdi.2015.39.21.

Issue

Vol. 39 (2015)

Section

Annual report

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