Purpose: Tuberculosis remains a major public health problem globally, especially in undeveloped countries. This study aimed to evaluate and review the long-term epidemic trends of tuberculosis in China.
Methods: Data were extracted from the Global Health Data Exchange. Metrics (prevalence, incidence and mortality) and Joinpoint regression were used to identify the epidemic trends.
Results: From 1990 to 2017, decreasing trends in prevalence (average annual percent change, AAPC: − 0.5%, 95% CI: − 0.6% to − 0.5%), incidence (− 3.2%, 95% CI: − 3.5% to − 2.9%), and mortality (− 5.7%, 95% CI: − 6.2% to − 5.3%) of tuberculosis were observed. The incidence and mortality of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) decreased with AAPC of − 2.3% (− 3.1% to − 1.4%) and − 4.9% (− 5.4% to − 4.5%), respectively, while the prevalence increased with an AAPC of 1.2% (0.3% to 2.0%). The burden of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) increased with an AAPC of 12.5% (11.9% to 13.2%) in prevalence, 7.6% (6.5% to 8.7%) in incidence, and 4.5% (3.6% to 5.4%) in mortality. The disease burden of tuberculosis increased with age and peaked among those aged over 70.
Conclusion: The epidemic of tuberculosis decreased in China, while the disease burden was still challenging to control. MDR-TB and XDR-TB should be emphasized along with the epidemic. It will certainly be a difficult task to achieve the post-2015 global targets by 2025 and 2035.
Keywords: tuberculosis, drug-resistant, epidemic, China