Aboriginal TB Rate Focus Of International Forum

Aboriginal TB Rate Focus Of International Forum

Wednesday, November 12, 2008 at 13:26

Indigenous leaders and public health experts from 60 countries are in Toronto today for the start of a three-day meeting on tuberculosis that’s being called the first of its kind.

They are hoping to carve out a plan aimed at reducing the burden of TB in Indigenous peoples, who are at higher risk of contracting the disease.

From 2002 to 2006, the First Nations TB rate in Canada was 29 times higher than the rate among the non-Aboriginal population.

For the Inuit, it was 90 times higher.

The Assembly of First Nations and other groups are calling for urgent action to cut the incidence of TB among Indigenous peoples in half by 2015.