Tuberculosis in Oman and the National Tuberculosis Programme

What it is

The National Tuberculosis Program (NTP) in Oman was initiated in 1981, and the national count of tuberculosis has been reported against that year ever since. Cases of all forms decreased from 928 in 1981 to 213 in 2010. The rate of sputum positive tuberculosis cases decreased over the same years, from 21/100,000 in 1981 to 4.29/100,000 in 2010.

National reporting keeps two things apart, and it matters which of them is being cited. Reported cases of tuberculosis in Oman are counted in three groups — sputum positive, sputum negative and extrapulmonary — while tuberculosis rates per 100,000 population for 2005 to 2015 are reported for all TB cases and, as a lower line, for sputum positive cases alone. Fig. 32 of reported cases is headed 1991 to 2015, but its own year axis is marked one year at a time from 1985 to 2015, so six years stand on it that the title does not name. And it carries one dated mark on that curve: 'DOTS' introduced 1995.