Posted on 10/22/2006 9:59:05 AM PDT by blam
U.S. immigrants pose TB threat
From coast to coast, more cases found raising fears of new drug-resistant strain
Posted: October 22, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
WASHINGTON – The worst forms of a drug-resistant killer tuberculosis bug, rapidly spreading throughout the world, have been gaining ground in the United States along with record legal and illegal immigration levels, alarming public-health officials over a disease once thought vanquished.
Although the number of confirmed drug-resistant TB cases in the U.S. is relatively small – still measured in the dozens – health officials say visitors from other countries are bringing in the deadliest mutations.
The only visitors to the U.S. who are screened for tuberculosis and other medical conditions are immigrants who enter the country legally. There is no easy way to screen millions of tourists and illegal migrant workers.
Worldwide, TB kills 2 million people a year, mostly in Africa and southeast Asia, but recently the European Union issued a warning that the threat there is considerable.
The drug-resistant TB recently killed more than 50 people in South Africa. It has been found in limited numbers in the U.S. – 74 reported cases since 1993. The strain is nearly impossible to cure because it is immune to the best first- and second-line TB drugs. It is as easily transmitted through the air as the old TB.
There is another form of TB concerning U.S. health officials. It is called "multi-drug resistant." It responds to more treatments but can cost up to $250,000 and take two years to cure. This is the strain increasingly common throughout the world – rising more than 50 percent from about 273,000 in 2000 to 425,000 in 2004, according to a study published in August in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.
In the U.S., 128 people were found to have it in 2004, a 13 percent increase from the previous year.
The states with the highest numbers of multi-drug resistant cases in the last decade were New York, California, Texas and Florida, according to the CDC – states with the highest populations of new immigrants.
Tuberculosis is a bacterial infection that primarily affects the lungs. TB is more common in urban areas. It is highly contagious and caused by bacteria. Many people infected with TB have no symptoms because it is dormant. Once it becomes active it may cause permanent damage to the lungs and other organs. TB is spread through the air by inhalation.
Over the last 30 days, TB has been discovered in dozens of states:
Last month, six employees who work inside Detroit's AT&T building tested positive. Investigations into the outbreak are ongoing. In Oklahoma City, hundreds of patients and hospital workers may have been exposed to tuberculosis by a health-care worker, and at least 10 people caught it. A letter sent to 1,650 patients and 350 workers at Integris Southwest Medical Center in Oklahoma City warned of their potential exposure and urged them to get skin tests to determine whether they were infected.
In Alabama, 22 LeFlore Preparatory Academy students and faculty members tested positive for tuberculosis infection and are undergoing further examination to determine if they have an active case of the disease, Mobile County Health Department officials said last Monday. The people who tested positive were among 909 who elected to be screened after a student was diagnosed with the disease.
In Florida, public health and school officials said they had confirmed a case of tuberculosis at a Manatee County middle school. Seven months ago, it was announced that a school district employee whose job required visits to several campuses had active TB.
In Cincinnati, a student and teacher visiting a high school became infected.
In Connecticut, health officials are trying to figure out whether a University of Hartford student has tuberculosis.
In South Texas, a second group of students and staff at McAllen's Zavala Elementary School were forced to undergo skin tests today after a student was discovered carrying the contagious airborne disease. In Pennsylvania, hundreds of Upper Moreland High School students had to be tested after the Montgomery County Health Department notified parents in the district that a male student had become infected over the summer. In Mississippi, more than 10 percent of the 102 Meridian firefighters have tested positive for the tuberculosis antibody, but state health officials say there is little cause for concern.
In South Georgia, Mitchell County health officials are investigating a case of tuberculosis at a major chicken processing plant.
In California, more than 6,000 inmates at California State Prison-Solano are being tested for tuberculosis after two inmates were discovered with the disease.
In Wisconsin, nearly 100 students and staff may have come into contact with a West Allis day care employee infected with tuberculosis, health officials report. The employee, who had active TB, is being treated and is no longer at the center.
Canada has also been hit with the disease – especially the Indian populations, but also increasingly among new immigrants from nations where the disease is endemic.
"With the shrinking of the global community with the transient nature of the world's population, TB has the potential to come to Canada time and time and time again," says Bob Dickson, a Calgary medical doctor and partner with RESULTS Canada, an NGO dedicated to fighting poverty and disease in the third world.
The World Health Organization reports that one-third of the globe's population is infected with the airborne bacteria that causes the disease.
The general symptoms of the disease include feelings of sickness or weakness, weight loss, fever and night sweats. The symptoms of TB disease of the lungs also include coughing, chest pain and coughing up blood. Symptoms of TB disease in other parts of the body depend on the area affected.
It is generally spread when someone with the infection coughs, sneezes or talks to another person, but prolonged contact is usually needed. People most at risk of developing tuberculosis include children and older people, smokers, those living in overcrowded conditions, those who have a poor diet, the homeless and those who have a weakened immune system.
Antibiotics are used to treat the infection, but they must be taken for at least six months to be effective.
The occurrence of drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis is also on the increase in Eastern Europe.
Health officials in Finland are particularly concerned because the multi-drug resistant form of tuberculosis has already found its way to Estonia and St. Petersburg.
About 450,000 people get infected with tuberculosis each year in the Europe region, including Eastern Europe and Central Asia, according to Pierpaolo de Colombani, a tuberculosis control medical officer for the World Health Organization.
Nearly 70,000 of these contract strains of the easily-spread respiratory ailment that resist the two main tuberculosis drugs, raising the likelihood that the disease could lead to epidemics in Western Europe on the scale of that seen in the 1940s.
"The drug resistance that we are seeing now is without doubt the most alarming tuberculosis situation on the continent since World War Two," said Markku Niskala, head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
"Our message to EU leaders is: wake up, do not delay, do not let this problem get further out of hand," Niskala said.
More killer diseases that we got rid of many years ago!
One more good reason for open borders; T B and Leprosy!!
I would have deported her on the spot. She is putting hundreds od Americans at risk!
I agree 100%, but you know how doctors are. They won't turn anyone away just because they can't pay them. They'll just send them to the office and have them get "free service" from the "indigent fund." That fund was set aside for "Americans" and NOT illegals, but the doctors don't care. They take an oath, and the only thing they are concerned about is a sick patient. She's got a daughter living in Albuquerque so she's been living with her. God only knows how many people she has exposed already.
This would never have been tolerated 25 years ago. Twilight Zone!~
TB is only the tip of the iceberg.
The illegals coming in have TB, tape worms, leprosy, and worse.
Their children have not been immunized and will spread these diseases in school.
Why do our politicians ignore the threats?
So you think that doctors are to blame for the diseases the illegals are bringing in?
You think doctors can somehow deport the illegals who are sick?
What about all those hospitals along the border that had to close? Doctors' fault too?
That just doesn't make sense.
Not true ... all LEGAL immigrants are screened medically.
ping
Malaria is the Number One killer of all time. Mosquitos capable of transmitting the disease are already here. It is only a matter of time before malaria parasites get established here.
It's all about costs/benefits. Clearly the politicos believe that the costs (to them) are outweighed by the benefits (to them). Face it, most of their kids don't go to regular public schools, and they don't run in the same crowds as the rest of us plebes (or peons). It's not an issue to them.
susie
Most of them are suffering from a disease - the DGAS syndrome... (don't give a sh**). We mean nothing to them.
But the bedbugs might keep us up at nite....
(tuberculosis, parasites and chronic hepatitis are diseases that are common to African immigrants)
And in many (almost all?)areas they get free medical treatment at taxpayer expense, of course.
Diseases from our illegal immigrants are going to hit us big time, down the road. Thanks to our open border zealot idiots, Pandora's box has been opened. It will take a few years before we see the horrific effect of just the the TB problem, as it takes awhile to infect each person with symptoms. BTW, drug resistent TB has a 60% mortality rate!!!
Some of the diseases they are bringing:
Chagas disease, also called American trypanosomiasis or "kissing bug disease," is transmitted by the reduviid bug, which prefers to bite the lips and face. The protozoan parasite that it carries, Trypanosoma cruzi, infects 18 million people annually in Latin America and causes 50,000 deaths. The disease also infiltrates America's blood supply. Chagas affects blood transfusions and transplanted organs. No cure exists. Hundreds of blood recipients may be silently infected.
Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease, was so rare in America that in 40 years only 900 people were afflicted. Suddenly, in the past three years America has more than 7,000 cases of leprosy. Leprosy now is endemic to northeastern states because illegal aliens and other immigrants brought leprosy from India, Brazil, the Caribbean and Mexico.
Dengue fever is exceptionally rare in America, though common in Ecuador, Peru, Vietnam, Thailand, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Mexico. Recently, according to the report, there was a virulent outbreak of dengue fever in Webb County, Texas, which borders Mexico. Though dengue is usually not a fatal disease, dengue hemorrhagic fever routinely kills.
Polio was eradicated from America, but now reappears in illegal immigrants as do intestinal parasites, says the report.
Malaria was obliterated, but now is re-emerging in Texas.
my wife is a nurse in Spokane. She came home today and said that the nurses were fitted for TB masks. They were told to keep all the info to themselves. The person fitting the masks said that we are near epidemic stage for TB nationwide.
Could tell you more stories that would make you very fearful... and this is in Spokane, where illegal immigration is minimal.
Damn, that is scary! You should tell us some of those stories, as we will never hear them anywhere else.
What does "we are near epidemic stage for TB nationwide" mean in layman terms?
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In epidemiology, an epidemic (from Greek epi- upon + demos people) is a disease that appears as new cases in a given human population, during a given period, at a rate that substantially exceeds what is "expected", based on recent experience (the number of new cases in the population during a specified period of time is called the "incidence rate"). (An epizootic is the same thing but for a nonhuman population.)
Defining a epidemic can be subjective, depending in part on what is "expected". An epidemic may be restricted to one local (an outbreak), more general (an "epidemic") or even global (pandemic). Because it is based on what is "expected" or thought normal, a few cases of a very rare disease like rabies may be classified as an "epidemic", while many cases of a common disease (like the common cold) would not.
Common diseases that occur at a constant but relatively high rate in the population are said to be "endemic". An example of an endemic disease is malaria in some parts of Africa (for example, Liberia) in which a large portion of the population is expected to get malaria at some point in their lifetimes.
Famous examples of epidemics include the bubonic plague epidemic of Medieval Europe known as the Black Death, the Great Influenza Pandemic concurring with the end of World War I, and the current AIDS epidemic, which some also consider to be of pandemic proportions.
Thanks blam. I was hoping Tahoe would share what she learned recently.
Everyone should read this, and don't forget to send it to the "leaders" in Washington and in the individual states, whether they care or not.
Let them know that we know they're sitting around allowing this invasion of disease, poverty, ignorance and dependence to continue.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.