Molecular Epidemiology of Drug-Resistant Mycobacterium Tuberculosis in Japan

The incidence rate of tuberculosis (TB) in Japan was 11.5 per 100,000 of the population in 2019. Of TB patients in Japan, 61.1% were aged >70 years, and 10.7% were born outside Japan, mostly in Asian countries with a high burden of tuberculosis. Of the tuberculosis patients in the present study, 5.4% and 1.0% showed resistance to isoniazid and rifampicin, respectively, and 0.7% were multidrug resistant. The objective of this study was to clarify the molecular epidemiological properties of drug-resistant tuberculosis in Japan. Molecular epidemiology provides several clues to inform potential measures to control drug-resistant tuberculosis in Japan.