Seasonal variation of newly notified pulmonary tuberculosis cases from 2004 to 2013 in Wuhan, China

Although there was a report about the seasonal variation in Wuhan city, it only analyzed the prevalence data of pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) cases, and just studied the seasonality by subgroup of smear positive and negative from 2006 to 2010 by spectral analysis. In this study, we investigated the seasonality of the total newly notified pulmonary TB cases by subgroups such as time period, sex, age, occupation, district, and sputum smear result from 2004 to 2013 in Wuhan by a popular seasonal adjustment model (TRAMO-SEATS). Monthly pulmonary TB cases from 2004 to 2013 in Wuhan were analyzed by the TRAMO-SEATS seasonal adjustment program. Seasonal amplitude was calculated and compared within the subgroups. From 2004 to 2013, there were 77.76 thousand newly notified pulmonary TB cases in Wuhan, China. There was a dominant peak spring peak (March) with seasonal amplitude of 56.81% and a second summer peak (September) of 43.40%, compared with the trough month (December). The spring seasonal amplitude in 2004-2008 was higher than that of 2009-2013(P0.05). However, there were significant differences in spring seasonal amplitude by occupation, with amplitude ranging from 59.37% to 113.22% (P