Korea's tuberculosis patients decreased by 64.5% for the first time in 13 years...The proportion of the elderly is increasing
Mar 24, 2025
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On March 24th '15th TB Prevention Day', the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced '2024 TB Patient Reporting Status'.
According to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC), the number of tuberculosis patients in Korea fell 7.6 percent annually after peaking at 50,491 in 2011, a 64.5 percent decrease until last year.
Last year, 17,944 tuberculosis patients occurred in Korea, down 8.2% from 2023.
In particular, the number of elderly and foreign tuberculosis patients over the age of 65 has decreased, but the proportion is gradually increasing.
By age group, there were 10,534 tuberculosis patients over the age of 65, down 6.9% from the previous year (11,309), but the proportion is increasing every year, accounting for 58.7% of all patients. The proportion of patients over the age of 65 has increased from 48.5% in 2020 to 51.0% in 2021 to 55.4% in 2022 and 57.9% in 2023. The number of tuberculosis patients per 100,000 people is 105.8 for those aged 65 or older, about six times higher than those under the age of 65 (18.0/100,000).
The number of foreign tuberculosis patients has been on the decline since 2016, when long-term residents from high-risk countries were required to check up on tuberculosis, down 2.7% from the previous year to 1,077 in 2024. However, the proportion of foreigners among all patients was 6%, up 0.3%p from the previous year.
By type of tuberculosis patients, 14,095 patients (78.5%) with pulmonary tuberculosis and 3,849 patients (21.5%) with extrapulmonary tuberculosis occurred in organs other than the lungs. There were 461 patients with multidrug-resistant/refampin-resistant tuberculosis who were difficult to treat due to their resistance to tuberculosis drugs, down 16.3% from the previous year (551 patients).
This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
