We have four jurisdictions across Inuit Nunangat. Each has its own TB elimination plan. We do not have a blanket rate of TB across Inuit Nunangat. We have outbreaks currently in Nunavik and Nunavut that in the last couple of years have been really driving the rate of TB, which now is about 600 times.... In 2018, when we started our TB elimination work, it was only about 300 times.... Unfortunately, COVID interrupted the public health work, the identification of active TB in communities and the treatment.
We understand that TB is a social disease in many cases and that we can eliminate TB through specific targeted actions, such as improving housing, because our housing overcrowding rate is 51%; eliminating poverty, because we have a 41% poverty rate; reducing food insecurity, because we have a 70% food insecurity rate; increasing public health outreach, because we do not have a complete health system across Inuit Nunangat; and increasing primary care—the care and treatment of it.
We have a research component to understand how TB affects our communities specifically. Genomics will help us understand how to treat TB. There was a $125-million allocation in the spring update for basic capacity for TB work over the next five years. What these additional funds will do is unlock the public health upstream work to further identify TB, to treat active TB and to focus on the specific health components and Inuit societal components of TB elimination.
We still need housing. We still need health care facilities. We still need doctors. Those are parts of the larger whole. We are trying to do our part.