Modeling and Forecasting Annual TB Incidence in Mozambique: A Stern Warning from Artificial Neural Networks

Mozambique is a high TB burden country which is suffering from civil war and natural disasters (mainly floods). It is struggling to control the TB epidemic as it has seen the rise in TB incidence over the period 2000-2018.In this research article, the ANN approach was applied to analyze TB incidence in Mozambique. The employed annual data covers the period 2000-2018 and the out-of-sample period ranges over the period 2019-2023. The residuals and forecast evaluation criteria (Error, MSE and MAE) of the applied model indicate that the model is stable in forecasting TB incidence in the Republic of Mozambique. The results of the study indicate that TB incidence will remain very high over the period 2019-2023. The government and its HIV/TB funding partners should allocate more financial resources towards HIV/TB prevention and control programs. The health ministry in Mozambique should intensify TB surveillance and control programs among other robust measures in order to significantly reduce TB incidence in the country.