Global patterns in Tuberculosis

The World Health Organization collects data about the prevalence of tuberculosis from around the world, and has been doing this for a few decades.

This data has been published in the Global Tuberculosis Control Report 2009.  Annex 3, Table 15 was brought into Google Fusion Tables. With the Google Fusion Tables visualizations, it was a matter of minutes to create two intensity maps that give the visual story of global patterns in tuberculosis infections.

This map shows the number of new smear-positive TB cases per country in 2007 (smear-positive means infectious - you can spread the disease). Compared to a table of numbers, this map makes it obvious that the number of new cases are much larger in India and China; these two countries are the preponderant source of new infections for TB.



This second map shows the number of new smear-positive cases per 100,000 population by country in 2007. This shows the countries where the rate of TB is greatest, and has the greatest impact on the people in the country. While India and China are generating the largest number of cases, the countries hardest-hit by TB infections are in southern Africa, Cambodia, Peru Bolivia and south Asia.




Here's the data set in Fusion Tables:
http://tables.googlelabs.com/DataSource?dsrcid=82534/82534. There's data for these countries going back to the mid 1990's, allowing you to see when these patterns emerged. Go explore it yourself!