High rates of tuberculosis

It doesn't really matter why the infection rate is so high; what matters is that what we are doing now doesn't work. It's time for some new approach to First Nations health care:

From the Globe.ca

It's been more than 100 years since Peter Bryce, former chief medical officer at Indian Affairs, sounded the alarm over shockingly high rates of deadly tuberculosis in government-funded Indian residential schools.

Now, a century later, TB continues to be a major concern in aboriginal communities. A new federal report reveals the TB rate among status Indians to be 31 times higher than that of non-aboriginal Canadians. Among the most susceptible of aboriginal populations are the Inuit, for whom the TB rate is 186 times that of Canadian-born non-aboriginals.

...

Inuit and First Nations leaders say the visitors should know that Canada's aboriginals are battling a preventable disease due to overcrowding in mouldy homes. Inuit housing and social services are almost entirely reliant on transfer money from the federal government.

...

The data reveal TB rates among non-aboriginal Canadians have decreased from one per 100,000 in 2003 to 0.8 per 100,000 in 2008, yet rates for aboriginals are climbing. The increase is particularly dramatic among Inuit, for whom the rate climbed from 22.1 cases per 100,000 in 2003 to 157.5 cases per 100,000 in 2008.

An earlier report from the Public Health Agency of Canada indicated that 8 per cent of Canadians diagnosed with TB in 2007 died before or during treatment.