Almost 1,200 hospitalised with TB in four years
There were nearly 1,200 people hospitalised with tuberculosis here in four years, according to a new study.
The study carried out by the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland examined hospital admissions from 2015 to 2018 diagnosed with the condition which sees 10 million falling ill around the world every year.
It found the ten longest emergency admissions for TB over the four years accounted for 1,935 bed days – which was nearly 14% of emergency bed-days used.
Despite the condition being a preventable and curable disease, 1.5 million people die from TB each year — making it the world’s top infectious killer.
While Ireland is a low incidence tuberculosis country with 6.6 cases per 100,000 population in 2018, the Irish study found that a small fraction of people with the condition could spend very long spells in hospital every year.
“There is a significant burden on the acute hospital inpatient service due to TB,” said the authors.
The researchers, which included Dr James O’Connell, Professor Sam McConkey, DrEoghan de Barra and Joy Oguntuase, found 1,185 hospital discharges with TB as the principal diagnosis were identified from 2015 to 2018 using the Hospital In-Patient Enquiry.
The figures reveal that two out of three of the admissions were emergencies and the remaining 32% were elective. While 92% were discharged after an overnight stay of at least one night, the remaining 8% were same-day discharges.
In total, 16,005 bed-days were used by patients with a principal diagnosis of TB, an average of 4,001 bed-days per year.
This equates to an average of 12.8 bed-days per notified case of TB.
The study estimated that between 67% and 74% of TB cases notified were admitted to hospital.
They added that it was estimated that 78% and 87% of respiratory TB cases notified were admitted to hospital.
The research was due to be presented at the European Congress on Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases in Paris this month, but the event was cancelled because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The authors concluded that the projected cost of respiratory TB admissions for 2019 is between €1.8 million and €2.4m.
The paper said the last reform of TB services in Ireland was in 2003. It recommended that most TB management should be delivered on an outpatient basis in general hospitals with a small number of beds allocated in three hospitals for inpatient management.
This resulted in three hospitals — Cork University Hospital, University College Hospital Galway and St James’s Hospital, Dublin —being designated as TB centres.
The World Health Organisation says TB is the leading cause of death of people with HIV.
Most of the people who fall ill with TB live in low and middle-income countries, but TB is present all over the world.
About half of all people with TB can be found in eight countries: Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines and South Africa.
About one-quarter of the world’s population is estimated to be infected by TB bacteria but only 5% to 15% of these people will fall ill with active TB disease.
The rest have TB infection but are not ill and cannot transmit the disease.
Both TB infection and disease are curable using antibiotics.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
