European blood
11-23-2011, 04:10 AM
A BOOM in immigration has sent cases of tuberculosis across Scotland soaring to a 10-year high, it emerged yesterday.
Official figures showed levels of the lung disease at their highest in a decade with a 44 per cent increase from 351 in 2001 to 506 last year, including 42 deaths.
Immigration has been blamed for the rise. The statistics, published yesterday by public health body Health Protection Scotland (HPS), also revealed that the number of TB cases attributed to immigrants has rocketed by 287 per cent since 2001.
Last year, one in 10 TB patients was born in Pakistan, while those born in India, Nigeria, Bangladesh, China and Romania accounted for almost 100 cases between them.
The new figures have sparked calls for strict health checks to be introduced for immigrants arriving from parts of the world where TB is still common.
Yesterday’s HPS report into TB claims that a programme of screening is “unlikely to be an effective tool”.
But Margaret Watt, chairwoman of the Scotland Patients Association, said: “We should be able to check these people before they come in.”
Last year, almost 300 pupils at Glendale Primary School in Pollokshields, Glasgow, were screened after a teacher developed the illness.
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “The vast majority of cases involving people who were born outside the UK are not diagnosed until some time after they arrive here. This means we are not seeing infectious, ill people coming into the country and this is why port of entry screening is unlikely to be effective.”
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/281402/Immigrants-blamed-for-tuberculosis-increase
Official figures showed levels of the lung disease at their highest in a decade with a 44 per cent increase from 351 in 2001 to 506 last year, including 42 deaths.
Immigration has been blamed for the rise. The statistics, published yesterday by public health body Health Protection Scotland (HPS), also revealed that the number of TB cases attributed to immigrants has rocketed by 287 per cent since 2001.
Last year, one in 10 TB patients was born in Pakistan, while those born in India, Nigeria, Bangladesh, China and Romania accounted for almost 100 cases between them.
The new figures have sparked calls for strict health checks to be introduced for immigrants arriving from parts of the world where TB is still common.
Yesterday’s HPS report into TB claims that a programme of screening is “unlikely to be an effective tool”.
But Margaret Watt, chairwoman of the Scotland Patients Association, said: “We should be able to check these people before they come in.”
Last year, almost 300 pupils at Glendale Primary School in Pollokshields, Glasgow, were screened after a teacher developed the illness.
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “The vast majority of cases involving people who were born outside the UK are not diagnosed until some time after they arrive here. This means we are not seeing infectious, ill people coming into the country and this is why port of entry screening is unlikely to be effective.”
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/281402/Immigrants-blamed-for-tuberculosis-increase