Colombia among the countries with the most cases of tuberculosis in the continent

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are currently 30 countries with a high burden of tuberculosis. These account for 86% of the new cases in the period analyzed, among which eight nations account for two-thirds of the total number of cases. The list is headed by India, followed by China and Indonesia.

However, the figures provided by the Colombian Ministry of Health, whose latest update contains cut-off data for 2021, made it clear that, according to the National Tuberculosis Control Program, the country ranks fourth, in the region of the Americas, with the highest number of cases of sensitive tuberculosis resistant to treatments.

According to the ministry, last year tuberculosis had an incidence rate of nearly 26 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. Of the total reported cases, almost 84% were pulmonary, and 16.1% had extrapulmonary manifestations. In fact, 9 out of 10 registered cases were new and just under 9% of these were people who had previously been treated for the disease.

The national government has as its priority the care and treatment of this disease, so it has invested some 8 billion pesos in tuberculosis treatment programs in various departments and municipalities of the country.

The department of Antioquia and the city of Bogotá have the highest number of cases in the country. In the case of the former, 2948 infections were reported. The foci are mostly concentrated in people between the ages of 25 and 39. In addition, the greatest impact is in the male population, reports the Ministry of Health of Antioquia. Likewise, the subregions most affected by this disease in the department are Aburrá Valley, East, Urabá, Southwest, North, Bajo Cauca, West, Northeast and Middle Magdalena.

The alert for the population, according to the health authorities, is given because the symptoms of tuberculosis can be confused with those of COVID-19, given that they have similar respiratory conditions.

“People who become ill with tuberculosis and covid-19 have similar symptoms, such as cough, fever and shortness of breath. The mode of transmission of the two diseases is through close contacts; however, the incubation period since exposure to the disease is longer in tuberculosis and usually has a slow onset,” César Augusto Toro, leader of communicable diseases at the Antioquia Ministry of Health, told El Colombiano.

Claudia Cuellar, deputy director of communicable diseases at the Ministry of Health, said: “It is a disease that can be serious, but curable. If it is not treated, it is highly contagious and can cause death”, treatment for tuberculosis usually lasts between 6 and 9 months, people must be very rigorous with the drugs that they must take them in full, as indicated, because if they stop consumption earlier it can cause re-infection with antibiotic resistance.

One of the populations that can be most severely affected if infected are those patients suffering from the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), figures show that tuberculosis is the leading cause of death among people with HIV in Latin America. Approximately 35% of them die from this disease.

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