Mining and Risk of Tuberculosis in Sub-Saharan Africa

The goal of the current study was to estimate the relationship between mining and TB among sub-Saharan African countries.

Multivariate regression was used to estimate the contribution of mining activity to TB incidence, prevalence, and mortality, as well as rates of people co-infected with TB and HIV; economic, health system, and population confounders were controlled for.

"Mining production was associated with higher population TB incidence rates (adjusted b=0.093; 95 percent confidence interval [CI]=0.067, 0.120; with an increase of mining production of 1 SD corresponding to about 33 percent higher TB incidence or 760,000 more incident cases), after adjustment for economic and population controls," the authors reported. Similar results were observed for TB prevalence and mortality, as also was the case with alternative measures of mining activity. "Independent of HIV, there were significant associations between mining production and TB incidence in countries with high HIV prevalence (=4 percent antenatal HIV prevalence; HIV-adjusted B=0.066; 95 percent CI=0.050, 0.082) and between log gold mining production and TB incidence in all studied countries (HIV-adjusted B=0.053; 95 percent CI=0.032, 0.073)."

Among sub-Saharan African nations, mining was found to be a significant determinant of countrywide variation in TB. "Comprehensive TB control strategies should explicitly address the role of mining activity and environments in the epidemic," the authors concluded.

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