Tuberculosis cases hit record high among elderly despite overall decline

Tuberculosis cases in Korea fell for the 14th consecutive year in 2025, but infections among older residents reached a record high, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said Tuesday. Korea recorded 17,070 tuberculosis cases in 2025, a 4.9 percent decline from a year earlier. The notification rate fell to 33.5 cases per 100,000 people, down from 35.2 in 2024. Since 2011 — when cases peaked at 50,491, or 100.8 per 100,000, the highest on record — the caseload has dropped by 66.2 percent, an average annual decline of 7.5 percent, according to the KDCA. The decline, however, obscures a deepening structural shift. Patients 65 and older totaled 10,669 in 2025, up 1.3 percent from 10,534 a year earlier, and accounted for 62.5 percent of all tuberculosis cases — a share that has climbed each year since 2021, when it stood at 51.0 percent. Among those 65 and older, the notification rate reached 101.5 cases per 100,000 — 6.4 times the rate among younger people. The KDCA attributed the increase in elderly cases to the growing size of Korea’s senior population, which reached 10.51

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