Abstract:

Objective: To analyze current situation around tuberculosis (TB) control and prevention for counties along the “Belt and Road” in 2021, which includes information on TB epidemic, case finding, treatment outcomes et al. Methods: Of 151 countries that officially signed Belt and Road Initiative cooperation document with China were included in our study. Relevant data were collected from the Global Tuberculosis Report released by WHO in 2022. Data on TB incidence, mortality, case detection, and treatment outcome were analyzed. Results: The entire population of 151 countries was 3.691 billion, accounting for 46.84% of the global population. The total number of estimated TB cases of 151 countries in 2021 was 6.4570 million, which contributes to 60.92% of global burden. The incidence rate was 174.94 per 100000. The number of TB death among HIV-negative patients was 816.2 thousand (59.14% of global total). The estimated number of new cases with multidrug-resistant or rifampicin-resistant tuberculosis (MDR/RR-TB) was 263.7 thousand (58.59% of global total). The number of HIV-related tuberculosis patients was 611.7 thousand and the death from HIV-positive TB cases was 165.1 thousand, which accounted for 87.01% and 88.32% of global total respectively. Majority of TB incident cases and deaths were in Asian and African countries and 8 of them belong to WHO defined high burden countries of TB, MDR/RR-TB, and TB/HIV. The overall case detection rate of the Belt and Road countries were 56.00% which was significantly lower than Chinese level of 75.04% and the global level of 60.70%. 63.00% of notified TB cases were diagnosed by laboratory tests, which was close to the global average (63.47%). Out of 151 countries, only 68 countries and 19 countries achieved ≥85% of treatment success rate for newly diagnosed or relapsed patients and retreated cases respectively. Conclusion: The experience exchange and cooperation mechanism for tuberculosis control and prevention between countries should be established on the platform of Belt and Road. It is needed to strengthen information sharing on infectious disease among countries, to build-up modern frontier inspection mechanism, and to constantly reduce the prevalence of tuberculosis.

Key words: Tuberculosis, Epidemiology, Communicable disease control, Belt and road