Abstract
Today, in Western Europe, Canada and the USA, more than half of all new active tuberculosis (TB) cases occur among foreign-born migrants. This article examines the impact of migration from high TB-incidence to low TB-incidence countries, and compares the cost-effectiveness of different TB control strategies.
A Medline search was conducted to identify relevant English language publications prior to December 2003. Additional articles were identified from the reference lists from these publications.
Despite the high proportion of active cases in low-incidence countries attributable to foreign-born residents, the public health impact is relatively low. Current chest radiograph screening programmes have little impact and are not cost-effective. Screening with sputum culture would improve cost-effectiveness marginally. Treatment of latent infection detected through screening with tuberculin skin testing or chest radiographs may require coercive measures to maximise impact and cost-effectiveness. In contrast, contact tracing, particularly within ethnic communities, appears to be more cost-efficient and less intrusive.
In low-incidence countries, screening of migrants at entry has little overall impact and is not a very cost-effective tuberculosis control strategy. More effective alternatives include contact tracing delivered through primary care and increased investment in global tuberculosis control.
- Cost-effectiveness
- migration
- screening
- tuberculosis control
- tuberculosis diagnosis
- tuberculosis prevention
SERIES “CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES IN TUBERCULOSIS”
Edited by A. Torres and J. Caminero
Number 7 in this Series
Footnotes
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Previous articles in this series: No. 1: Cardona P-J, Ruiz-Manzano J. On the nature of Mycobacterium tuberculosis-latent bacilli. Eur Respir J 2004; 24: 1044–1051. No. 2: Rieder H. Annual risk of infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Eur Respir J 2005; 25: 181–185. No. 3: Mitchison DA. Drug resistance in tuberculosis. Eur Respir J 2005; 25: 376–379. No. 4: Kim SJ. Drug-susceptibility testing in tuberculosis: methods and reliability of results. Eur Respir J 2005; 25: 564–569. No. 5: Dlodlo RA, Fujiwara PI, Enarson DA. Should tuberculosis treatment and control be addressed differently in HIV-infected and -uninfected individuals? Eur Respir J 2005; 25: 751–757. No. 6: Caminero JA. Management of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis and patients in retreatment. Eur Respir J 2005; 25: 928–936.
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