In Uzbekistan, despite stable and relatively high tuberculosis (TB) treatment success rates, relatively high rates of recurrent TB have recently been reported. This requires closer analysis to identify possible causes and recommend interventions to improve the situation. Using countrywide data, this nation-wide retrospective study aimed to analyse trends in recurrent TB cases and describe their associations with socio-demographic and clinical factors. The study compared recurrent TB patients with all new TB patients registered within the National TB Programme (NTP) between January 2006 and December 2010 using routinely collected data. It was concluded that despite signs of declining national TB notifications between 2006 and 2010, the relative proportion of recurrent cases appears to have increased. These findings, together with the identification of possible risk factors associated with recurrent TB, highlight various areas where Uzbekistan needs to focus its TB control efforts, particularly in light of the country’s rapidly emerging multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) epidemic.
