Latin America’s rise in tuberculosis linked to imprisonment rates

Study warns region's exponential rise in incarceration is fuelling the disease, with cases increasing by 19% between 2015 and 2022

High incarceration rates in Latin America - the region with the world's fastest-growing prison population - are exacerbating tuberculosis in a region that is bucking the global trend for falling incidents of the disease, experts have warned.

A study published in The Lancet Public Health journal has estimated that, contrary to previous assumptions, HIV/Aids is not the primary risk factor for tuberculosis in the region - as it remains in Africa, for example - but rather imprisonments.