Is Singapore on track to eliminate tuberculosis by 2030? A policy case study

Abstract

Tuberculosis remains the top 10 causes of death worldwide in 2015, with the largest number of new tuberculosis cases occurring in Asia. Singapore, a high-income Asian country, still has an intermediate tuberculosis burden. This study is to determine Singapore’s tuberculosis policy with regard to achieving tuberculosis elimination goals. This is a case study of tuberculosis elimination policy in Singapore. Data were collected by policy review and literature review. Policy documents and reports were gathered from the websites of the Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization for policy review. The literature review was carried out through PubMed and Google Scholar to identify articles on epidemiology, treatment, and prevention of tuberculosis in Singapore. Data analysis of policy reports revealed that despite the overall downwards trend in the tuberculosis incidence rates between 2000 and 2015, the tuberculosis incidence rates reversed in 2008. Singapore tuberculosis policies are mostly consistent with the World Health Organization Stop TB Strategy, although over half of the performance indicators were not achieved by 2015. After screening 1014 articles, 18 studies were included in the literature review. The rapidly ageing population, great population mobility, and continuous community transmission were found to be major obstacles to achieving Millennium Development Goals in Singapore. Singapore is lagging in achieving the targets. Scaling up the existing tuberculosis programme to accelerate the tuberculosis decline is required to meet Sustainable Development Goals 2030. Unlike other high-income countries with an intermediate tuberculosis burden in Asia, Singapore has increasing tuberculosis incidence rates. While other countries face the burden of an ageing population, Singapore faces an additional burden of an influx of migrants from high-incidence countries. Singapore will need to control tuberculosis in both these demographic groups to reverse the increasing incidence trend.