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UK sees alarming rise in TB sufferers
Source: Agencies |
December 18, 2010, Saturday
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BRITAIN is the only country in Western Europe with rising rates of tuberculosis and in London cases of the disease once dubbed "the white plague" have grown by nearly 50 percent since 1999, a study showed yesterday.
Britain has more than 9,000 cases of TB diagnosed a year and the problem is becoming particularly acute in the capital, which accounts for 40 percent of the nation's diagnosed cases, researchers said.
Alimuddin Zumla, a global TB expert from University College London, said the situation in London was reminiscent of outbreaks of multi-drug resistant TB in prisons in the United States in the 1990s.
"Poor housing, inadequate ventilation, and overcrowding - conditions prevalent in Victorian Britain - are causes of the higher TB incidence rates in certain London boroughs," he said in a commentary on the study, which was published in the Lancet Infectious Diseases journal.
He said that in Britain, as in all European countries, the disease was mainly concentrated in high-risk groups such as migrants, refugees, homeless people, drug users, prisoners, and people infected with the HIV virus.
A report last month found that cases of TB in Britain reached their highest level for 30 years in 2009 with 9,040 cases, and the number of drug-resistant TB cases had almost doubled in the past decade.
The study found that the increase in the number of TB cases seen in Britain has largely been in non-UK born groups, but most of these were not in new migrants. It said 85 percent of cases born overseas had lived in Britain for two or more years and about half had lived here for five or more years - indicating that the disease is not being imported from elsewhere.
Britain has more than 9,000 cases of TB diagnosed a year and the problem is becoming particularly acute in the capital, which accounts for 40 percent of the nation's diagnosed cases, researchers said.
Alimuddin Zumla, a global TB expert from University College London, said the situation in London was reminiscent of outbreaks of multi-drug resistant TB in prisons in the United States in the 1990s.
"Poor housing, inadequate ventilation, and overcrowding - conditions prevalent in Victorian Britain - are causes of the higher TB incidence rates in certain London boroughs," he said in a commentary on the study, which was published in the Lancet Infectious Diseases journal.
He said that in Britain, as in all European countries, the disease was mainly concentrated in high-risk groups such as migrants, refugees, homeless people, drug users, prisoners, and people infected with the HIV virus.
A report last month found that cases of TB in Britain reached their highest level for 30 years in 2009 with 9,040 cases, and the number of drug-resistant TB cases had almost doubled in the past decade.
The study found that the increase in the number of TB cases seen in Britain has largely been in non-UK born groups, but most of these were not in new migrants. It said 85 percent of cases born overseas had lived in Britain for two or more years and about half had lived here for five or more years - indicating that the disease is not being imported from elsewhere.
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