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TB screening planned for Nunavut hamlet battling outbreak since 2021

PANGNIRTUNG, Nunavut — The Nunavut government and Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated, a group representing Inuit in the territory, are holding a community-wide screening clinic for tuberculosis in Pangnirtung later this year.
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Sunlight illuminates the hamlet of Pangnirtung, Nunavut Thursday August 20, 2009. The Nunavut government and Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated are holding a community-wide screening clinic for tuberculosis in Pangnirtung later this year. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

PANGNIRTUNG, Nunavut — The Nunavut government and Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated, a group representing Inuit in the territory, are holding a community-wide screening clinic for tuberculosis in Pangnirtung later this year. 

The screening is to begin in September and continue through November. 

A tuberculosis outbreak was declared in the hamlet in November 2021.

As of late February, 39 people in the community had been diagnosed with active TB and 167 with latent TB.

The last community-wide screening in the territory took place in Whale Cove in 2018.

The federal government and Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, a national advocacy group, have pledged to reduce active tuberculosis across Inuit communities by half by 2025 and eliminate it entirely by 2030. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 8, 2023. 

The Canadian Press