FORECASTING OF INCIDENCE PREVALENCE OF TUBERCULOSIS IN AZAD JAMMU & KASHMIR: A 5 YEAR RETROSPECTIVE STUDY

Background: Tuberculosis is one of the critical public health issue in Pakistan, unfortunately according to 2018 report of WHO Pakistan hold 5th place in the TB high burden countries and estimated to be on fourth position for MDR prevalence. Currently Pakistan sharing 61% of case burden of TB in EMRO region. There is slight decline in case incidence 231/100,000 in 2015 as compared to 270/100,000 cases in 2014 as declared by Worldbank in the report of 2016.

Methods: Polynomial regression model was used to predict the tuberculosis incidence prevalence in AJ&K for the year 2019. Prediction based on tuberculosis data from 2014 to 2018 that was analyzed for the estimation of incidence prevalence of tuberculosis in AJ&K for 2019.

Results: Polynomial regression technique was used to predict the tuberculosis incidence prevalence for the year 2018 that was obtained 118/100000. At the end of 2018 actual data reported shows that averagely incidence prevalence of TB remains 124/100000 with minor difference from the predicted value for 2018. Further data from 2014 to 2018 analysis; predicted that averagely 130/100000 cases will be reported in 2019.

Conclusion: It is predicted that the Incidence Prevalence for the year 2019 will remain 130/100000 for the AJ&K on base of data 2014-2018. This shows that AJ&K is so far from the target (270/100000) set by WHO. If a TB case produce 10 cases in community annually then within a few years, there will be the disaster of TB cases in the AJ&K.