Review of the national tuberculosis programme in Romania

ABSTRACT

Romania has the highest incidence of TB in the European Union (EU)/European Economic Area (EEA),representing one quarter of the EU/EEA TB burden. A review of the national TB programme in Romaniawas jointly organized by the WHO Regional Office for Europe and the European Centre for DiseasePrevention and Control, with WHO leading all operations, from 10 to 21 March 2014. The reviewacknowledged the high rates of detection and treatment success achieved among patients with drugsusceptibleforms of TB; it also pointed to the large proportion of patients with multidrug-resistant TB whoare not detected or are poorly treated. The review identified major challenges to be addressed atprogramme level as well as at health system level and gave the Ministry of Health and the national TBprogramme 14 main recommendations for improvement.