Communicable Diseases in Migrants

Communicable Diseases in Migrants
Infectious diseases continue to be major causes of mortality
and morbidity in certain parts of the world. This
poses a challenge for health care providers and for
national disease control strategies in countries receiving
immigrants/refugees from areas where infections
persist. The examples of tuberculosis and HIV are
discussed below; for more general information see
migrants, infectious diseases.
Tuberculosis is a disease that has been unevenly controlled
globally. Consequently, a number of migrantreceiving
countries are seeing changes in their TB profiles.
For example, the incidence of new tuberculosis
cases in Denmark increased in the early 1990s, with
the proportion of foreign-born cases rising from 18%
in 1986 to 60% in 1996. The Netherlands experienced
a 45% rise in the number of reported TB cases between
1987 and 1995; at least 50% of these cases involved
migrants. In Germany and France, migrants are three and six times, respectively, more likely to be diagnosed with TB than non-migrants are. Many migrants move into living conditions that are crowded and poorly
maintained, a fact that plays a role in the spread of tuberculosis within migrant communities.
The link between HIV and migration poses a challenge
to governments and health care providers. Migrants
who are prone to human rights abuses, economic deprivation,
social inequalities (migrants,social inequalities)
and socio-economic instability are also particularly
vulnerable to HIV. In many industrialized countries,
migrants from high-prevalence countries were found
to be disproportionally affected by HIV and AIDS.
Many of these migrants discover their status late and
fail to receive timely treatment. It is difficult to establish
whether these persons were already infected when
they arrived, or became infected in the destination countries.
To avoid the double stigma of disease and foreignness,
prevention efforts for migrants should be within
the context of the overall national prevention strategy.