[TUBERCULOSIS ANNUAL REPORT 2013--(1) Summary of Tuberculosis Notification Statistics and Foreign-born Tuberculosis Patients].

This is the first in a 4-series report based on the Tuberculosis Annual Report 2013. It summarizes general tuberculosis (TB) statistics and gives an overview of foreign-born TB patients notified and registered in Japan in 2013. TB notification has continued to decline since 2000, and a total of 20,495 patients with all forms of TB were notified in 2013, with a rate per 100,000 population of 16.1. The age of TB patients has increased, with 57.4% of all TB patients in 2013 more than 70 years old. The number of patients with latent TB infection drastically increased from 4,930 in 2010 to 10,046 in 2011, but has been declining since. The number of foreign-born TB patients increased from 739 in 1998 to 1,064 in 2013; similarly, the proportion of foreign-born patients among all TB patients increased from 2.1% in 1998 to 5.4% in 2013. Foreign-born TB patients aged 20-29 years accounted for 42.7% of all new TB patients in the same age group in 2013. Among foreign-born TB patients, more than half were from China (27.4%) and the Philippines (24.1%). Younger patients were more likely to have entered Japan within the previous 5 years (61.5% and 61.3% of foreign-born patients in their teens and twenties, respectively). The largest occupational category was "regular employees" (25%), which excluded service workers, health care workers, and teachers, followed by students (24%) and unemployed people (21 %). With the government relaxing restrictions on entry of foreign workers to cope with labor shortage in the construction industry ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, both the number and proportion of foreign-born TB patients is also expected to rise. Comprehensive programs are urgently required to ensure early diagnosis and treatment completion among one of the vulnerable populations in Japan.