A tuberculosis (TB) outbreak in a remote Inuit community in Nunavut is proving exasperating and has drawn attention to the difficulties faced by territory health authorities to eradicate its persistent cycles of community infection..Pangnirtung, a village on Baffin Island, is struggling to manage the largest tuberculosis outbreak in the territory in five years. The data comes from the territorial government that released its long-awaited data on Thursday..Territorial officials had so far resisted sharing precise data with residents and news media. On Thursday they released data that showed the seriousness of the outbreak..“The information should have been provided to us regularly to begin with,” the Pangnirtung mayor, Eric Lawlor, told the Globe and Mail. “This is more concerning than COVID, actually.”.The Nunavut Department of Health reported that it had confirmed 139 cases of TB in the small community in the past year and a half..Thirty-one of those cases were still unresolved and means those patients were sick and infectious..TB is caused by a bacterium (mycobacterium tuberculosis) that most often affects the lungs. Tuberculosis is curable and preventable. It’s easily spread from one person to another through the air. When people with lung TB cough, sneeze or spit, they propel the TB germs into the air. A person needs to inhale only a few of these pathogens to become infected..The government of Nunavut spends about $10 million every year on treatment alone but says the costs of prevention and eradication are far higher and therefore less affordable..The average annual rate of TB among Inuit is almost 300 times higher than in non-indigenous Canadians. The disproportionate infection rate is attributed to chronic overcrowding, poverty, and a lack of access to healthcare. The information comes from a 2018 report from the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC)..In 2020, there were 72.2 active cases of TB per 100,000 of the population among Inuit, according to the PHAC. The national case rate is 4.7 per 100,000..Indigenous peoples, including the Inuit, were involuntary test subjects for experimental tuberculosis vaccines beginning in the 1930s. The experiments are the subject of a class action lawsuit..Beginning in the 1940s, Inuit were separated from family and transported to tuberculosis sanatoriums in southern Canada..Many lived in the facilities for many years. Their families often weren’t informed about their relatives' whereabouts or conditions, even after they passed away. The practice continued until the '60s..Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged to eliminate tuberculosis in the territory by 2030. .While the coronavirus pandemic delayed eradication plans, critics say government ineptitude and funding shortfalls are responsible.
