Tuberculosis incidence in Armenia slashes by 60% over past 8 years

YEREVAN, March 24. /ARKA/. Tuberculosis (TB) incidence in Armenia has slashed by 60% over the past 8 years and according to experts’ estimates, the infectious disease can be eliminated by 2030.

Artak Manukyan, the head of the National Center for Pulmonology, an affiliation of the Ministry of Health, told a press conference today that the epidemiological situation in the country is favorable in the post-Covid period.

He said the data on detection of tuberculosis cases in 2021-2022 show a stable drop in the incidence of the disease.

"Armenia has all the prerequisites to achieve tuberculosis elimination before 2030, the date set by the WHO," he said.

Lyubov Nikolayan, advisor to the director of the National Center of Pulmonology for Science, said the number of cases decreased by 60% from 2015 to 2022 (from 36.6 to 14.8 per 100,000 people), while mortality rate decreased by 25% (from 1.6 to 1.2 cases per 100,000 people).

According to statistics, men fall ill with tuberculosis more often: in 2022, they accounted for 78% of all TB cases. This indicator has been fluctuating within 3% since 2012. As for age categories, all people over the age of 15 are almost equally susceptible to tuberculosis. According to the 2021 data, the number of cases by age was distributed as follows:

0-14 years old - 5%

15-24 years old - 8%

25-34 years old - 17%

35-44 years old- 20%

45-54 years old - 19%

55-64 years old - 20%

Over 65 years old - 11%.

The incidence rate among 15- to 24-year-olds has changed significantly in recent years, dropping by 10% since 2017. -0-