Epidemiological trend in tuberculosis in the Italian region of Liguria: impact of immigration and AIDS.

Background: Tuberculosis (TB) uniformly decreased in all industrialized countries from 1950 to 1985. However, since 1985 an upsurge of the disease has been observed, probably due to the increases in AIDS and immigration. It is for this reason that in the last decade all industrialized countries have intensified their controls on TB and a new reduction has been recently observed.