Gender differences in tuberculosis in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

As the leading infectious killer of youths and adults, tuberculosis (TB) kills more women than all other causes of maternal mortality combined. The aim of this study is to investigate gender differences in the reported cases in Rio de Janeiro from January 1995 to December 1999. There were 18,428 females and 36,830 males, with a female:male ratio of 0.5; 30.8% (5676) of the female cases reported had had previous close contact with a tuberculosis case compared to 23.1% (8510) of the males. Extra-pulmonary tuberculosis occurred in 3966 (21.5%) and 6521 (17.7%) women and men, respectively. Genitourinary tuberculosis had the highest female:male ratio.