Tuberculosis Consultant Services

In many communities, the prevalence of tuberculin skin test reactivity, indicating prior infection with M tuberculosis, is larger among adult males than among females of the same age group. The actual difference can vary greatly as these two examples show.

The differences in the prevalence of infection by sex in the two countries is best visualized as a male-to-female ratio.

In India, males aged 25 to 34 years are almost 1.8 times as likely to be infected with M. tuberculosis than females.  In Denmark, the differences are much less pronounced.

Large variations in the sex-specific prevalence of tuberculous infection are thus expected in different socio-cultural contexts.