PREVALENCE

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), nearly 2 billion people, one-third of the world's population, have TB and new infections occur at a rate of about one second. The proportion of people who become sick with tuberculosis each year is stable or falling worldwide but, because of population growth, the absolute number of new cases is still increasing. In 2007, there were an estimated 13.7 million chronic active cases, 9.3 million new cases, and 1.8 million deaths, mostly in developing countries.

In addition, more people in the developed world are contracting tuberculosis because their immune systems are compromised by immunosuppressive drugs, substance abuse or AIDS. The distribution of tuberculosis is not uniform across the globe; about 80% of the population in many Asian and African countries test positive in tuberculin tests, while only 5-10% of the US population test positive.

This is a case study with statistics we found on the Internet (this dates back to 2008).


Global and regional incidence


WHO estimates that the largest number of new TB cases in 2008 occurred in the South-East Asia Region, which accounted for 34% of incident cases globally. However, the estimated incidence rate in sub-Saharan Africa is nearly twice that of the South-East Asia Region with over 350 cases per 100 000 population.


An estimated 1.3 million people died from TB in 2008. The highest number of deaths was in the South-East Asia Region, while the highest mortality per capita was in the Africa Region.


In 2008, the estimated per capita TB incidence was stable or falling in all six WHO regions. However, the slow decline in incidence rates per capita is offset by population growth. Consequently, the number of new cases arising each year is still increasing globally in the WHO regions of Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean and South-East Asia.


visit this link for the full statistics and review.


http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs104/en/


Here are also some facts we found from the link.


Did you know that...


-Someone in the world is newly infected with TB bacilli every second.

-Overall, one-third of the world's population is currently infected with the TB bacillus.

-5-10% of people who are infected with TB bacilli (but who are not infected with HIV) become sick or infectious at some time during their life. People with HIV and TB infection are much more likely to develop TB.

Finally, here is a pie chart showing the prevalence of Tuberculosis by age.



Based on the pie chart shown...

Ages 15 or less - 6%
Ages 15 ~ 24 - 12%
Ages 25 ~ 44 - 32%
Ages 45 ~ 64 - 30%
Ages > or = 65 - 19%

Hence, we can conclude that people in the age range of 25~44 and 45~64 contract tuberculosis at a higher rate then the other age ranges.