Tuberculosis, although it remains at a low level, saw a recovery in cases in 2023 in France, three years after the Covid era, according to a study published on Tuesday by Public Health France.
After 5,114 cases were reported in 2019, the pre-Covid year, there was a “sharp decline in cases and reporting rates in the year the epidemic occurred”, then “the following two years”, it said. A weekly epidemiologic summary bulletin, preceding World Tuberculosis Day on March 24.
While the health crisis in 2022 “had no effect on the severity and mortality of tuberculosis”, 2023 saw a “change in activity, increase in incidence” (4,728 cases declared, according to data provisional), possibly associated with “catch”. -increase in diagnosed cases”, note the study’s authors.
Considering the situation in other countries as well, “vigilance is required”.
Airborne, tuberculosis is a highly contagious bacterial infection that most commonly affects the lungs, but can spread to the brain.
Despite vaccines and antibiotics, recently supplanted by Covid-19 as the world’s leading cause of death from infection, tuberculosis continues to be a problem.
Its persistence in France, even with fewer than 10 cases/100,000 inhabitants, means that the vaccine there is recommended even though it is mandatory.
Regular declines in declared cases (a decline of about 5% per year for half a century) and deaths in the country are sometimes interrupted by “limited and transient increases” linked to external events, the study shows.
In addition to Covid, the war in Ukraine, causing a significant movement of refugees to Western Europe, had an impact on the epidemic.
France has implemented active tuberculosis screening for certain refugees arriving from Ukraine, one of the countries with the highest number of cases in Europe.
“Less than 10% of the 118,000 displaced people in France will be screened by anti-tuberculosis centers in 2022,” according to another SPF study, which estimates a prevalence of 197/100,000 cases among them.
To explain this limited screening, the authors mention, among other things, the difficulties in reaching certain refugees, who live in “improvised short-term centers” or with locals. And “few people suffer from symptoms” encourages them to seek care.
At the same time, a rise in tuberculosis cases with bacilli multi-resistant to key antibiotics was recorded again in France in 2022 after cases from Ukraine and Georgia, another BEH publication showed.
In the past 10 years, however, the treatment of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis has experienced several revolutions, with “the discovery of new anti-tuberculosis drugs, the reintroduction of known antibiotics, and the results of several therapeutic trials combining these molecules”.
Published at 8:32 am on March 19, AFP
