In 2019, 151 tuberculosis (TB) cases were registered in Estonia, 127 of them were new cases, 21 cases were relapses and 3 were retreatment cases, according to the statistics of the tuberculosis registry published today. For comparison, 147 cases of TB were registered in 2018 and 175 in 2017.
Of the patients, 103 were men and 48 were women. The oldest patient was 97 years old and the youngest was 1 year old.
The notification rate (new cases and retreatment cases) of tuberculosis per 100,000 people in 2019 was 11.4 and the incidence rate was 9.6.
In comparison with the countries of the European Union, the indicators of 2018 can be used: the average incidence rate of tuberculosis per 100,000 people was 10.2 in Europe and 11.1 in Estonia.
Estonia is becoming one of the countries with a low incidence of tuberculosis, the main problem is the high proportion of drug-resistant forms. In 2019, a total of 27 cases of multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB were registered, including 17 new cases of MDR-TB, which is 16% of new cases of culture positive pulmonary tuberculosis. This proportion is one of the highest in Europe.
Tuberculosis statistics are published in the Health Statistics and Health Research Database.