According to the center, the number of TB-infected children in Lithuania has been rising at a fast rate since 2014.
Seventy-one TB-infected children were registered last year, up from 69 in 2016, 58 in 2015 and 38 in 2014.
Joana Korabliovienė, public health specialist at the ULAC Epidemiological Surveillance Unit, says that the TB incidence rate among children reveals a high number of undiagnosed cases of open tuberculosis among adults.
The latest data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) show that the largest numbers of TB cases in 2016 were registered in Romania, Bulgaria and Lithuania.
While the number of MDR TB cases in the European Union and European Economic Area has been on the decline in recent years, that number in Lithuania has remained stable.
Lithuania’s MDR TB treatment success rate is the worst in Europe, at 11 percent of all notified MDR TB cases, well below Estonia’s 58 percent and Latvia’s 74 percent.