Haiti has the highest per capita tuberculosis burden in the Latin America and
Caribbean region. After HIV/AIDS, TB is the country’s greatest infectious cause of
mortality of both youth and adults (6,000 deaths annually). Haiti is among the eight
priority countries identified by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) for
TB control in the region. According to the WHO Global TB Report 2006, Haiti had
more than 25,000 new TB cases in 2004. Of these, 11,140 were new pulmonary
sputum smear-positive (SS+) cases. Although Haiti falls short of the WHO targets
of 70 percent case detection and 85 percent treatment success, the Directly
Observed Therapy Short-Course (DOTS) case detection rate is 49 percent, up
from 12 percent in 1998, while the treatment success rate has remained fairly
stable around 78 percent. DOTS coverage is estimated at 55 percent, but in some
highly dense metropolitan settings, such as areas of Port-au-Prince, coverage can
be as low as 13 percent. The most populated departement in Haiti, Ouest (West),
has 34 percent of the country’s population but only 25 percent coverage.