Abstract: Objective  To analyze the characteristics of TB in students.  Methods We collected the pulmonary TB(PTB) reporting data from the Infectious Diseases Reporting System(IDRS), and TB outbreak investigating report from Emergency Public Health Events Reporting System, analyzed the distribution of reported PTB in students and the characteristics of TB outbreak. The total number of students in mainland China were 240320175 in 2008, 238547238 in 2009, 237235870 in 2010, 235770400 in 2011 and 235770400 in 2012 respectively.  Results  A total of 39198 cases of PTB cases in students were reported in 2012 with the reported incidence of 16.63/100000, decreasing by 39.28% in comparison with 2008(65815 cases，27.39/100000). In terms of the reported cases by quarter, the highest was in the second quarter, accounting for 30.43%（12662/41608）-32.38%（21313/65815）of the whole year. The top five school TB incidence provinces were Tibet（79.95/100000，415/519042）,Qinghai(59.09/100000，607/1027309),Guizhou(36.54/100000，2956/8089905) and Chongqing (33.06/100000，1778/5377413),Xinjiang(26.08/100000,1082/4147979). Students PTB in 2012 accounted for 4.12% （39198/951508）in the whole patients, highest in 15-20 years group（54.12%，21215/39198）. From January 2009 to June 2013, a total of 21 cases of TB outbreak nationwide were reported in schools, 14 cases (66.67%) happened in senior high school with an average of 25 patients in each case.   Conclusion  From 2008 to 2012, the TB epidemic in schools had a declining trend by year, the reported incidence peaked in the second quarter and relatively high in the western provinces. The majority of TB cases were around 15-20 years old. The TB epidemic in schools in recent years revealed that some problems existed in TB control in schools, and we need to further strengthen TB control in schools.

Key words: Tuberculosis, pulmonary/epidemiology, Incidence, Age distribution, Students