Each year the TB Section releases it’s annual  TB surveillance report and the 2010 report was released in December, 2010.The purpose of the annual TB report is to describe the epidemiology of tuberculosis  in the Pacific and to make brief recommendations for national TB programme managers, government decision makers and technical partners to improve TB control in the region. SPC’s annual TB report for 2010 contains information on TB cases notified in 2008 and treatment outcomes for TB cases notified in 2007. The report describes the epidemiology of TB in the whole Pacific region, in the three subregions of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia, and by country and territory.  The report describes that in the Pacific in 2008, 8% fewer TB cases than 2007 were notified to national TB programmes. Excluding Papua New Guinea , 1459 TB cases were notified and a further 13,984 TB cases were notified in Papua New Guinea in 2008. The report can be downloaded from the TB Section website (under Publications) and all national TB programmes will also be sent a hard copy of the report.

Tuberculosis (TB) continues to be a public health issue of major significance around the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that globally in 2007 there were 9.27 million new cases of TB, of which 44% (or 4.1 million) were infectious.

TB is spread through the air from infectious patients to people in close proximity (i.e. contacts). After exposure to an infectious case, 1–2% of contacts will develop TB, one third will be infected with TB (but won’t have TB disease) and two thirds will remain uninfected. Of the one third who are infected, 5–10% will develop TB disease at some stage during their lifetime and some people are more likely to develop TB than others.

The emergence of resistance to anti-tuberculosis (TB) drugs, particularly of multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB), has become a major public health problem worldwide and an obstacle to effective global TB control. Although available data indicate an overall low level of drug resistance in the southern Pacific, alarmingly high levels in some Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs), especially the Micronesian, have been observed.

In response, a working group of experts from the technical agencies (WHO, CDC and SPC) and from the network of Pacific TB reference Laboratories was established to develop a framework to address MDR-TB in the Pacific.