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Disparity in TB rates 'unacceptable'

By: Larry Kusch

Posted: 10/24/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

Anne Fanning (MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS) Photo Store

THE great disparity in tuberculosis rates within Canada is a moral issue the country must address, a Canadian expert says.

Fewer than five (4.6) in every 100,000 Canadians get sick from TB each year. Yet, in Nunavut, a whopping 304 per 100,000 came down with the disease in 2010.

"I submit to you that, ethically, that's unacceptable," said Anne Fanning, who spent decades treating TB patients and is professor emeritus at the University of Alberta's faculty of medicine and dentistry.

"I think that we have a moral/ethical obligation to address the issue," she told a small group of Winnipeg health professionals Tuesday afternoon. She later addressed a public forum at McNally Robinson Booksellers.

There are more than 1,500 cases of tuberculosis per year in Canada. More than two-thirds are among foreign-born and aboriginal populations. Some 150 Canadians die of the disease annually.

In recent years, Manitoba has had the highest TB rate among Canadian provinces -- more than double the national average. In November 2009, Free Press reporter Jen Skerritt revealed some northern Manitoba First Nations had recorded some of the highest TB rates in the world.

Tuberculosis is curable, yet 1.6 million people die of the disease worldwide each year.

Canada is participating in a global effort to eliminate TB as a public-health problem by 2050. But for that to occur, improvements are needed in the early diagnosis and treatment of the disease, Fanning said. Socio-economic disparities must also be addressed.

Canadian experts are frustrated that, unlike south of the border, we lack a system for treating TB that sets targets and evaluates how well programs are measuring up. In the United States, which has a slightly lower national TB rate than Canada (3.9 per 100,000), program funding is contingent on such a system being in place.

Fanning has been an outspoken critic of Canadian TB programs. In 1996, she lost her job as the head of Alberta's tuberculosis program after publicly criticizing the province's plans to cut its TB program.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition October 24, 2012 A6

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