Introduction
This report is an overview of the epidemiology of Tuberculosis rates in the United Kingdom between 2004 and 2013. The report is done with the aim to review the trend of Tuberculosis spread in the UK and its impact on morbidity and mortality records, which remains significant to the UK public health system, with huge socioeconomic concerns.
Tuberculosis or TB is an infectious disease affecting mainly the lungs, though it generally affects a number of organs in body (Ivany and Boulton, 2014; NHS, 2014). It is caused by a bacterium called Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Stanton and Wijgerden, 2010; WHO, 2015a). In 2013, about 9 million people were reported to be affected by Tuberculosis, with fatality of over 1.5million people (WHO, 2015b). Globally, mortality rate for Tuberculosis is observed to be on the decline by almost 45% in the last decade, with case infection rate also dropping by 1.5% (Talip et al., 2013; WHO, 2015b), meeting the target of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 2015. However, this trend is observed to be inverse in most under-developed and developing countries (Kazemnejad et al.,2014), …show more content…
Limitations
A major limitation is cost due to amount of both human and financial investment involved in the constant vigilance of the surveillance teams; in ports, hospitals, clinics, border regions, local communities and other relevant surveillance points.
Furthermore, a search of the data source revealed that case distribution based on gender was not made available. While this may be a limitation based on researcher’s personal search skill, every dataset from the source was thoroughly searched for this information. Ability to make data readily accessible to the public for further research and analysis is importance in determining the trustworthiness of a data source.
This report is an overview of the epidemiology of Tuberculosis rates in the United Kingdom between 2004 and 2013. The report is done with the aim to review the trend of Tuberculosis spread in the UK and its impact on morbidity and mortality records, which remains significant to the UK public health system, with huge socioeconomic concerns.
Tuberculosis or TB is an infectious disease affecting mainly the lungs, though it generally affects a number of organs in body (Ivany and Boulton, 2014; NHS, 2014). It is caused by a bacterium called Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Stanton and Wijgerden, 2010; WHO, 2015a). In 2013, about 9 million people were reported to be affected by Tuberculosis, with fatality of over 1.5million people (WHO, 2015b). Globally, mortality rate for Tuberculosis is observed to be on the decline by almost 45% in the last decade, with case infection rate also dropping by 1.5% (Talip et al., 2013; WHO, 2015b), meeting the target of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 2015. However, this trend is observed to be inverse in most under-developed and developing countries (Kazemnejad et al.,2014), …show more content…
Limitations
A major limitation is cost due to amount of both human and financial investment involved in the constant vigilance of the surveillance teams; in ports, hospitals, clinics, border regions, local communities and other relevant surveillance points.
Furthermore, a search of the data source revealed that case distribution based on gender was not made available. While this may be a limitation based on researcher’s personal search skill, every dataset from the source was thoroughly searched for this information. Ability to make data readily accessible to the public for further research and analysis is importance in determining the trustworthiness of a data source.