Inuit TB infection rate 32 times above national average in 2008
ITK wants national Inuit-specific strategy
Canada’s national Inuit organization wants an Inuit-specific national strategy for handling tuberculosis among Inuit, whose infection rate was 32 times worse than the national average in 2008.
In a joint press conference March 10, representatives of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and the Assembly of First Nations demanded immediate action by the federal government to address skyrocketing rates of tuberculosis among aboriginal Canadians.
It is imperative that a separate strategy be created now for Inuit, one that is created with Inuit and embraces solutions that are culturally acceptable and based on our realities,” said Gail Turner, the chair of ITK’s National Inuit Committee on Health.
“TB will never be eliminated until housing is improved, food security is improved and the access to health care for Inuit is closer to what other Canadians take for granted. “
Turner said ITK, the federal government, and relevant territorial and provincial governments must work together to come up with ways to fight tuberculosis in Canada’s most remote communities.
A pre-released draft report by the Public Health Agency of Canada found that in 2008, the rate of tuberculosis infection among Inuit was 157 per 100,000 people.
That’s 32 times the national average and 185 times the infection rate among non-aboriginal, non-immigrant Canadians, the group with the lowest rate of TB infection.
Many news reports have erroneously stated that the Inuit TB infection rate is 185 times the national average.
TB infection rates for First Nations people in 2008 were 31 times higher than those among the non-aboriginal, non-immigrant population.
Tuberculosis rates for Canada as a whole have been dropping for years, but rates for Inuit have fluctuated wildly. The small Inuit population means a small change in TB case numbers can made a big difference to numbers calculated as a proportion of the population.
2008 was the highest year for Inuit TB infections since 2003, the first year TB data was collected with aboriginal origins taken into account.
Turner said she is worried that as Canada improves its health care, Inuit could be forgotten, even though their TB rates may continue to rise.
“Given that there are only 56,000 Inuit in Canada , without a strategy specifically for us, our rates could continue to soar while the national rates decline.,” she said.
Preventing and treating TB in Inuit communities is often problematic because of geography. Many Inuit live in isolated communities with no permanent doctors.
Health centres in Nunavik and Nunatsiavut lack X-ray scanners, Turner said, which are very useful in diagnosing the disease through chest X-rays.
And samples for laboratory analysis must often travel long distances and await processing. That can delay medical treatment while a patient’s health worsens during the wait.
“We have to find ways of reducing those times,” Turner said.
Inuit also suffer from several environmental conditions that make them more susceptible to diseases such as TB.
The chronic overcrowding in Inuit communities makes disease transmission easier, and the mould in many Inuit homes makes their lungs vulnerable to infection.
Infections like TB are also more likely for smokers, heavy drinkers, and people who don’t have enough nutritious food to eat.
Turner also said that many elders were among the first Inuit to be infected with tubercuousis and lacked natural resistance to the disease.
Now in their old age, people who were infected 40 years ago are at risk of a “reactivation” of TB, as the scar tissue in their lungs fails to keep the bacteria contained.
At the ITK-AFN press conference, NDP health critic Judy Wasylycia-Leis called the aboriginal TB numbers “shocking.”
“So I will ask tonight for an emergency debate to urge the government to come up with a comprehensive plan of action,” she said.
With the largest proportion of Inuit among its population, Nunavut has by far the highest TB rates in Canada, six times that of the runner-up, the Northwest Territories, and 38 times higher than the national average between 1998 and 2008.
The Public Health Agency of Canada’s preliminary TB report is available at http://bit.ly/9n5wJR.
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