Forecasting Incidence Prevalence of Tuberculosis in Azad Jammu & Kashmir: A Five-Year Retrospective Study

Background: Tuberculosis is one of the critical public health issue in Pakistan, according to report of WHO (2018), it holds 5th place among the TB high burden countries and estimated to be on fourth position for MDR prevalence. Currently, Pakistan is sharing 61% of case burden of TB in EMRO region. Methods: Polynomial regression model was used to predict the tuberculosis incidence prevalence in AJ&K for the year 2019. Estimation based on tuberculosis data (2014-2018) analyzed for the incidence prevalence of tuberculosis in AJ&K for 2019. Results: Tuberculosis incidence prevalence for 2018 was obtained 118/100000. The actual data of 2018 reported shows that averagely incidence prevalence of TB remains 124/100000 with minor difference from the predicted value of 2018. The data analysis from 2014 to 2018; predicted that average 130/100000 cases will be reported in 2019. Conclusion: This shows that AJ&K is far from the target (270/100000) recognized by WHO. If one TB case produces 10 cases in community annually, then in coming years, there will be adversity of TB cases in the AJ&K. It is suggested to WHO to revise its target.