Avanzando en la lucha contra la tuberculosis en Chile

Abstract

In 1973 Chile started a National Tuberculosis Control Programme based in the use of sputum smear for tuberculosis finding and proper treatment. Programme activities lead the country to achieve the threshold of tuberculosis elimination in year 2000. Since then the usual annual 7% decrease in the incidence of tuberculosis has leveled off. Between years 2009-2011 tuberculosis rate remained stationary in around 13.1 per 100.000 inhabitants. Such epidemiologic regression was related to a decrease in bacteriological case finding on primary health care and the existence of risk groups like the elderly, prisoners, migrants and HIV infected. The Metropolitan Region of Santiago represents 40% of the total incidence of tuberculosis of the country and has a higher proportion of high risk groups. We recommend to increase the tuberculosis detection rate focused in high risk groups, to increase preventive therapy of latent tuberculosis in HIV infected and close child contacts and improve treatment success. In year 2012 we have achieved a lower tuberculosis incidence rate of 12.6 per 100.000 inhabitants due to an increase in sputum smear detection. It is necessary to maintain this measures for the continuous progress in the control of tuberculosis.