Tuberculosis rate up by 12.4 percent in 2022

March 21, BPN. The rate of tuberculosis rose by 12.4 percent in 2022 as compared to the previous year, the Belarusian center for pulmonology and tuberculosis said.

“The slight increase in the incidence rate in 2022 was expected and predicted,” the center’s director, Hienadź Hurevič, told reporters in Minsk on March 21.

“It is connected with under-detection of patients in the previous years, when COVID-19 was rampant,” he said. “It’s an episodic spike. The overall trend is toward the complete eradication of the disease.”

Medics registered 1,384 new cases of tuberculosis in 2022, including 16 in children. A total of 97 people died.

The incidence rate was 18.1 cases per 100,000 people. The highest incidence was recorded in the Homiel region (28/100,000), and the lowest incidence was in Minsk (7.9/100,000).