Prevalence of tuberculosis and multidrug resistant tuberculosis in the Middle East Region

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Prevalence of TB and MDR-TB varies considerably among various regions of World Health Organization (WHO) and also among individual countries within each region. Many Middle Eastern countries have war/civil war-like situations, refugees from war-torn countries or dynamic expatriate population from TB endemic countries which will likely affect the END-TB strategy launched by the WHO in 2015.

Areas covered: The data for each of 17 countries comprising the Middle East were analyzed for estimated incidence of TB, number of notified TB cases, mortality rate, and rate of MDR-TB in new and previously treated TB cases as reported by WHO. Data from national surveys or surveillance studies from individual countries were also analyzed for incidence of MDR-TB in new and previously treated TB patients and compared with the estimated data by WHO.

Expert commentary: Several Middle Eastern countries have low/intermediate incidence rate and are striving for TB elimination. Reaching pre-elimination (< 1 TB case per 100 000 population) stage will require testing and treatment of latent TB infection in groups at high risk of reactivation and effective treatment of drug-susceptible and drug-resistant TB cases. Large numbers of refugees, expatriate workers, or confounding noncommunicable diseases in some countries pose major challenges in achieving progress toward TB elimination.

KEYWORDS:

• Tuberculosis
• multidrug-resistant tuberculosis
• Middle Eastern countries
• prevalence
• TB elimination

Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Reviewer disclosers

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Declaration of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The manuscript was funded by a Kuwait University Research Sector [Grant YM08/14].