Abstract
Tuberculosis (TB) accompanies humans throughout their entire history. Despite the fact that etiologic agent of TB, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, was described more than one century ago and for more than half of century we have basic line of antituberculous drugs, TB still represents global threat, with respect both to the number of infected individuals and to mortality.
The current epidemiologic situation in the Czech Republic is optimistic, with incidence and prevalence values being one of the lowest in Europe. This is due to a quality treatment system and contact tracing and investigation, good policy of chemoprevention and chemoprophylaxis, and also due to isolation of all patients with contagious forms of TB.
BCG vaccination in the Czech Republic is selective since 2011, i.e. only newborns at higher risk of TB are vaccinated. Despite this approach, the number of children with TB does not grow.
Some changes in epidemiology of TB might be expected due to the migration waves from the countries with higher prevalence of TB, multidrug resistant forms included. Time will show how we can cope with these influences in our system of TB control; however, given the low numbers of migrants in the Czech Republic, changes in TB epidemiology will probably not be significant.