Risk of tuberculosis in public transport sector workers, Lima, Peru.

Setting: Delays from symptom onset to the diagnosis and treatment of smear-positive pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) produces possible new cases in persons in close contact with TB cases, especially in confined spaces such as overcrowded public transport, which puts other users and transport workers at risk.

Objective: To estimate TB incidence rates in patients of a health micro-network, and the percentage of transport sector workers among TB and multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) patients.

Design: Crude and indirect standardised incidence rates of TB were calculated from an exhaustive analysis of all clinical histories of incident patients in a health micro-network between 1 January 2007 and 30 June 2008.