[Table of Contents]

Volume: 24S2 - June 1998

Proceedings of the National Consensus Conference on Tuberculosis
December 3-5, 1997

BACKGROUND

In 1994, in response to the halt in the downward trend of tuberculosis (TB) incidence in Canada and the changing epidemiology in other countries, including the emergence of multidrug-resistant TB and the spreading TB-HIV co-epidemic, the Laboratory Centre for Disease Control (LCDC), Health Canada, held a national conference to define its role in a renewed national strategy for TB prevention and control. One of the recommendations to emerge from the conference was that a national expert advisory group be formed to consider ways of controlling and ultimately eliminating the various threats posed by TB in Canada.

The advisory group that was established, the Expert Committee on Tuberculosis (ECOT), set up several subcommittees to consider issues in specific areas: programming and case management, laboratory issues, Aboriginal peoples, immigration, TB/HIV co-infection, and research. Through a consultative process, each subcommittee drafted a report and recommendations for actions required to achieve elimination of this disease in Canada. The recommendations were presented for consideration by a wider audience at a National Consensus Conference on Tuberculosis, held in Toronto on Dec. 3-5, 1997. This report provides a brief description of the epidemiologic aspects of TB worldwide and in Canada, and presents the final recommendations for a national TB strategy that were achieved by consensus at that meeting.

Electronic key pads were used to measure the degree of consensus on each proposed recommendation and to ensure voter confidentiality. The agreed upon criteria for reaching consensus on a given recommendation were as follows:

(a) 80% or more of all voting participants were in favour of the recommendation;

(b) 80% or more of voting participants who identified themselves as stakeholders in the specific area of the recommendation were in favour of that recommendation.

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