Rapid assessment of the country tuberculosis emergency response and preparedness in mitigating the impact of cross-border migration on the tuberculosis epidemic in Czechia

The WHO Regional Office for Europe would like to thank colleagues from the Ministry of Health (MoH), Thomayer University Hospital, and the National Public Health Center (SZU) for the collaborative work on planning, reviewing and developing the report.

An increase in tuberculosis (TB) and drug-resistant TB notifications was reported by Czechia to WHO in 2022 and observed over the first 10 months of 2023. This pointed to a recovery of the country’s health system from the impact of COVID-19, in addition to increased migration processes across the region, mainly heightened by the war in Ukraine. The WHO mission to Czechia addressed reported cases of multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB), particularly among children. Mission outcomes indicate that most of the notified MDR-TB cases have a foreign origin, largely from Ukraine. Available evidence suggests that most cases likely resulted from the reactivation of latent infection or a new exposure to TB before migration, rather than from recent transmission occurring in the host country.

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