TB Presentation to Standing Committee on Health

This morning senior ITK staff, along with the Chair of the National Inuit Committee on Health, are attending the Government of Canada Standing Committee on Health for a presentation on Tuberculosis (TB).

The rate of TB for Inuit Nunangat is 185 times the rate of Canadian born non-Aboriginal people, this is a rate that is comparable to, and in some cases exceeds, some developing nations. At a time when the national rate of this disease is declining the rate among Inuit has doubled.

The reason for this unacceptably high rate of infection can be traced in very large part to the social determinants of health, which include housing food insecurity and poor access to healthcare.

Tuberculosis is an infectious disease, which means that it is spread through the air when infected people cough or sneeze - and Inuit homes are the most overcrowded in Canada. The four Inuit regions require up to 5,000 additional housing units to meet immediate needs. Add to that an Inuit birth rate that is the highest in Canada, and you have conditions for multigenerational infections and transmissions.

Inuit families are seven times more food insecure than other Canadians, a few months ago a study completed by the McGill Centre for Indigenous People's Nutrition and Environment and published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal noted:

Seventy per cent of Inuit preschoolers in Nunavut live in homes where there isn't enough food

In many Inuit communities there is no access to chest x-ray equipment, late diagnosis further increases the risk of spread.

These are all factors which should concern all Canadians.

As we have stated previously, TB rates among Inuit will never be eliminated until housing is improved, food security is improved, and access to health care for Inuit is improved to the degree that it is comparable to that which other Canadians enjoy.

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