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Urban TB ControlArchived

Event
22 Mar 2012 - 23 Mar 2012
London, Milan, Rotterdam, Barcelona
ECDC

ECDC was working jointly with four cities in the EU to celebrate World TB Day.

For World Tuberculosis Day 2012, ECDC focused on ‘Urban TB Control’ and was working jointly with four cities in the EU to arrange events on this theme. The cities hosting the events were Barcelona (Spain), London (United Kingdom), Milan (Italy) and Rotterdam (The Netherlands).

Under the initiative of ECDC, a working group ‘Metropolitan TB Control in Europe”, was facilitating the exchange of experiences of TB control programmes in big cities of the EU. The aim was to increase the awareness around urban TB epidemiology and promote the exchange of experiences on good practices, innovative tools and interventions for enhanced TB control efforts in big cities of the EU.

Why Urban Control

The changing epidemiology of TB within EU is characterised by a disproportionate accumulation of disease in certain vulnerable populations often concentrated in metropolitan settings. Even in low incidence countries, urban TB can be several times higher than in rural areas.

The prevention and control of TB among these risk groups is complicated by delayed diagnosis, onward transmission and poor treatment adherence. TB services that are not tailored towards the needs of urban risk groups carry a continuing risk of higher rates of TB and drug resistant strains.

The higher TB incidence seen in big cities of Western Europe is an expression of a declining epidemic, which poses new challenges and needs to be addressed in order to completely eliminate TB in EU.

Urban TB Control initiatives

 

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