EPIDEMIOLOGY OF CHILDHOOD TUBERCULOSIS IN THE ASHKELON REGION IN ISRAEL, 1958-1994

The incidence rates of tuberculosis (TB) in Israel decreased steadily up to 1984, but rose again between 1985 and 1991, mainly due to immigr ation waves from Ethiopia. The epidemiology of TB in children was surv eyed in the Ashkelon region. The regional TB register of Barzilai Medi cal Centre, kept since 1958, was used as the source for our data. Two hundred and fifty TB cases in children were reported between 1958 and 1994, constituting 9.7% of the total 2565 cases reported in the whole population of Israel's southern Mediterranean coast. While in the late 1950s and early 1960s the majority of reported cases occurred in chil dren of North African origin, reflecting the large wave of immigration from North Africa at that time, in 1985-94 at the time of the Ethiopi an immigration wave, Ethiopian children constituted the majority of th e patients. They were diagnosed up to 9 years after arrival. None of t he reported cases was HIV-positive.