Towards the development of EU/EEA Standards for Tuberculosis Care (ESTC).

T uberculosis (TB) continues to pose a public-health threat to the people of the member states of the European Union (EU) and European Economic Area (EEA). EU/EEA countries comprise Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, the Republic of Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the UK. In 2009, almost 80,000 TB cases were notified in the EU/EEA, and while several countries are progressing towards achieving and sustaining low levels of TB incidence, the contrasts in TB disease burden remain great within the EU/EEA [1]. Some countries are faced with a significant burden of drugresistant TB, and multidrug-resistant (MDR)-TB. In 2009, 5.3% of all active TB cases reported in the EU/EEA were MDR-TB, and 14.1% were resistant to any of the first-line TB drugs [1]. HIV coinfection is still low, with an overall proportion of 2.3% of TB cases being HIV-seropositive, although accurate surveillance data reporting is suboptimal in many countries [1–3].