[Tuberculosis in Poland in 2006].

Unlabelled: Tuberculosis has been a major health problem in Poland for many years. In 2006 y. decrease of tuberculosis notification rates in Poland has continued. In this year 8593 tuberculosis cases notified, incidence rate was 22.5 per 100.000 population with the large differences in notification rates between voivodships / region from 11.0 in the West to 36.0 in the East. The incidence in 2006 was 7.4% lower than in previous year and 38.0% lover than in 1997 y. Pulmonary cases represented 91.7% of all TB cases of which 61,2% were bacteriologically confirmed. Low proportion--8.3% extrapulmonary TB cases which continues for many years may indicates inadequacies in diagnosis and registration of this form. Children TB cases--69 incidence 1.1--represented 0.8% of all TB cases notified in Poland. The incidence of tuberculosis increases with age from 1.1 in children to 42.8 among 65 and older. The median age group--50-54. The incidence of men 30.9 is two times higher than in women--14.7 and in rural population higher than in urban respectively 23.4 and 22.0. Among of all TB pulmonary cases were 279 cases--about 3.5% all TB cases--with resistance to at least one drug. In these cases were 54 MDR TB cases. In overall registered cases were 33 cases among HIV/AIDS patients and 47 cases among foreigners. There were 806 deaths due to tuberculosis: from tuberculosis pulmonary 777--and 29 from extrapulmonary tuberculosis reported in 2005 i.e. 2,1 per 100.000. Mortality among males 3.4 was four times higher than among females--0.9. Among all deaths from tuberculosis--44% were in patients 65 year of age and older. Since many years the TB mortality is of the order of 0.2% of total mortality and more than 1/3 of all deaths from infectious diseases.

Conclusions: In last decade decrease incidence of TB has continued. The incidence of tuberculosis in Poland was about two times higher than mean incidence before enlargement European Union (15 countries). The distance between Poland and EU countries with lowest incidence TB is estimated 20-25 years.