P93 TRENDS IN HOME-BORN TUBERCULOSIS RATES AMONG EUROPEAN COUNTRIES IN COMPARISON TO UK

A Ponnuswamy, S Durairaj, PDO Davies. Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital, Liverpool, UK

Introduction: Following the government action plan for tuberculosis it has been suggested that a reduction in case rates among the home-born white population in the UK could be used as a measure of a successful tuberculosis control programme. In 2007 we presented data comparing trends in home-born rates of tuberculosis between the USA and the UK. We found that between 1993 and 2005 home-born case rates in the UK remained steady while almost halving in the USA. We have extended the analysis to assess the rates in home-born Europeans against the home-born white population in the UK.

Methods: We analysed data from the EuroTB reports published by the European Centre for Disease Control. We also sought data from the individual country profiles. Detailed data regarding incidence rates among all the European countries have started as recently as 2000–1. The data collection changed in 2004 with the expansion of the European Union. Minor differences do exist in the way data are collected by individual member countries. To achieve the most accurate comparison across countries we have extracted data from 2002 to 2006 for selected western European countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal and the UK.

Results: Portugal had by far the highest home-born case rates, 38/100 000 in 2002, but also had the highest annual rate of decline over the 5 years analysed: 1.63. The home-born rates in 2002 varied from 9.4 for Austria to 2.1 for The Netherlands and were 3.4 for the UK. Annual tuberculosis case rates among the home-born population were found to be decreasing within most of Europe, varying from 1.63 (Portugal) to 0.02 (Denmark). In contrast, three countries showed a small increase in annual case rates: the UK 0.05, …