In Europe, only eastern European countries including Russia, Romania, Moldavia, Georgia, Ukraine, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Armenia, Byelorussia, Latvia and Lithuania had higher rates.
The average rate for Europe as a whole was 36 per 100,000.
Despite the relatively high prevalence of the disease in Portugal, the national health authorities in March highlighted the fact that last year’s rate was the lowest ever since records began.
According to the WHO report, the death rate for tuberculosis in Portugal last year was 2.1 in 100,000 inhabitants.
The average rate for Europe as a whole was 3.5 per 100,000.
The coordinator of Portugal’s national programme to combat tuberculosis, Raquel Duarte, had said previously that outbreaks of the disease would continue to emerge in some places, such as prisons or certain neighbourhoods, and that such outbreaks were a characteristic of lower infection rates.
According to the authorities, tuberculosis in Portugal is starting to become a disease that is not found in the whole community, but only in some high-risk groups, and is concentrated in certain geographical areas, above all urban centres such as Lisbon and Porto.
For Duarte, one of the current priorities is to reduce the time between symptoms appearing and the disease being diagnosed. Another is to increase the proportion of patients who undergo treatment, above all among more vulnerable groups such as the homeless, drug users and prison inmates.