Prevalence of latent tuberculosis infection at congregated settings in the Republic of Korea, 2017

Cho Kyung Sook, Park Won Seo, Jeong Hye Ran, Kim Min Jeong, Park Soo Jin, Park A Young, Park Gyu Ri
Division of TB ＆ HIV Control, Center for Disease Prevention, KCDC

The tuberculosis (TB) incidence rate in Korea was 77 per 100,000 population in 2016, showing the highest among OECD countries. Since one-third of the Korea뭩 population was estimated to be infected with M. tuberculosis, the Korean government began to provide systematic latent TB infection (LTBI) diagnosis and treatment as a preventive therapy for about 1.2 million individuals in the high risk group in 2017. The purpose of this study was to investigate LTBI prevalence among congregated settings in Korea in 2017. Data were retrieved from LTBI screening through the Integrated Disease and Health Control System. Chi-square test was conducted. The prevalence of LTBI ranged from 2.1% to 34.0%: 2.1% among first grade high school students, 2.9% among military cons, 15.2% among kindergarden teachers, 17.5% among healthcare workers, 19.3% among nursery workers, 28.5% among workers at social welfare facilities, and 34.0% among prisoners. However, these differences were caused by age structure, and there was no difference of age-specific prevalence of LTBI among congregated settings. On the other hand, there were significant differences of age-specific prevalence of LTBI by gender. This study suggests that policy makers should focus on treatment for people with positive LTBI and need to investigate TB incidence among groups such as treatment group with positive LTBI, non-treatment group with positive LTBI, and negative LTBI group for at least 10 years.

Keywords: Tuberculosis, TB incidence, Latent tuberculosis infection, Congregated settings