CDC: Foreign-Born Groups In U.S. At Higher TB Risk

Atlanta, GA (AHN) - Foreign-born immigrants account for more than half of new tuberculosis cases in the U.S. in recent years, according to a study in a major medical journal.

Researchers suggest that immigrants to the U.S. from Africa and Southeast Asia should be tested and treated for tuberculosis before they arrive to prevent importing the disease.

More than 53 percent of all TB cases in the U.S. among foreign-born persons occurred in the 22 percent of the population born in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Kevin P. Cain of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed data of foreign-born persons in the United States diagnosed with TB from 2001 through 2006. The study examined which populations of foreign-born persons in the U.S. are at higher risk of TB and drug-resistant TB.

A total of 46,970 cases were reported among foreign-born persons in the U.S. from 2001 through 2006, of which 12,928 (28 percent) were among immigrants who had entered the country within the previous two years.

The study also found that TB case rates declined over time among the foreign-born population overall, but remained higher than among U.S.-born persons, even more than 20 years after arrival. The figure was more than four times higher in 2006.

The drug-resistant TB was found the highest in countries including Vietnam, Peru, the Philippines and China. Researchers believe that screening immigrants and refugees from the Philippines and Vietnam would have detected almost half the average 250 TB cases brought into the U.S. each year between 2001 and 2006.