Apathy Reigns in the South....

A national analysis of health data suggests tuberculosis is 185 times more common among Canada's Inuit than it is among the mainstream population - and getting worse.

The trend is another escalation in the rate and that should make Canadians concerned, particularly as the trend in the rest of the country goes down said the Public Health Agency of Canada.

While the agency hadn't yet released its report on the actual infection rates,
it is another wake-up call to healthy Canadians, "There must e much more attention paid to the rates of TB among Inuit." Who is gong to do it Canada

It's the first time that national data on the incidence of TB in Canada's North has been closely examined,thanks NOW to the Public Health Agency of Canada, which now has access to all the Canadian data including at last the Inuit population

What has been found is that Canada's four main Inuit regions had a TB incidence rate in 2008 of 157.5 for every 100,000 people. The rate in southern Canada is 0.8 per 100,000. Inuit are 185 times more likely to contact TB

The analysts also found southern aboriginals had a tuberculosis rate 31 times higher than the national average and that tuberculosis seems to be getting worse in the North. The rate of Inuit infection in 2004, for example, was 90 times higher.

The analysis I believe does not include people who may have been exposed to the disease but haven't yet developed it nor does tell you the rate of latent infection. If these people don't remain in good health, that could become the actual disease.

Tuberculosis is also spreading to different age groups. While the highest rates of infection were found among the elderly, who may have first been exposed during the great TB epidemics of the '50s and '60s, the next highest rate was found in the 20-to-25 age group.

The rates varied widely from place to place. Analysts found some communities had no tuberculosis at all.

Tuberculosis is usually considered a disease of the poor. It flourishes in overcrowded homes filled with poorly nourished people who have substandard access to health care. All three conditions apply across the Arctic.

A recent study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal found that 70 per cent of Inuit preschoolers live in homes where there isn't always enough food. The number of people per household is 50 per cent higher than elsewhere in Canada, and houses are smaller and older.

Inuit also have high smoking rates. In Monday's budget speech in the Nunavut legislature, Finance Minister Keith Peterson said 53 per cent of Nunavummiut light up at least once a day.

The population of 55,000 people scattered across a very large section of the country, needs a concerted effort from all more fortunate Canadians with a strong political will that truly will focus on reducing the rate of TB among Inuit.

The new information joins a long string of disturbing Inuit health indices. Recent studies have revealed that Inuit infant mortality is nearly four times the Canadian average and that Inuit children have the highest rate of hospital admission for lower respiratory tract infections in the world.

The rate of premature delivery is three times what it is in the south. Inuit suicides - 43 per cent of which are committed by youth under the age of 20 - are 11 times more common than the Canadian average.

Do you care Canadians ?