Prevalence of latent tuberculosis infection among participants of the national LTBI screening program in South Korea - A problem of low coverage rate with current LTBI strategy

The Government of South Korea launched a national preemptive latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) screening program in 2016, including more than 1. 6 million population in congregate settings. The

Only a small proportion of participants with positive IGRA results could be covered by the current LTBI strategy. Expansion of LTBI strategy by identifying further high-TB risk group in the general population is required.

Database for

A total of 444,394 participants in Group A, 272,224 participants in Group B, and 11,511 participants in Group C who participated in the national LTBI screening program between 2017 and 2018 were included, with LTBI prevalence of 20.7, 2.0, and 33.2%, respectively. Age was the single most important risk factor in Group A and Group C. Low-income level was another risk factor commonly identified in all groups. Among participants with positive IGRA results, 2.7, 4.4, and 3.3% in Groups A, B and C, respectively, had past TB exposure history since 2013. Current LTBI guideline targeting high or moderate TB risk disease covered 6.5, 0.6, and 1.1% of participants with positive IGRA results in Groups A, B and C, respectively.