Tuberculosis in migrant processing centre

[surreysarah]

I was rather alarmed to read this bit about tuberculosis at a migrant processing centre in Essex:

We were also shown the NHS medical facility within the site, with doctors and nurses available to residents.
A number of arrivals, we were told, had active tuberculosis and that up to 20 per cent have been diagnosed with latent TB.
That distinction matters. Latent TB is not infectious in the way active pulmonary TB can be. But for one in five residents to be carrying latent TB is certainly something the public is entitled to know about.
In addition, some people arrive suffering from scabies, something the medical staff take extremely seriously because of how readily it can spread in communal accommodation.

https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-16076797/asylum-centre-holiday-camp-Wethersfield-former-RAF-base.html

Should we worry that TB and scabies could spread into the wider community, or is it easily treated/containable?

Every child 10-14 used to have the bcg vaccine against tb. It stopped in 2005 due to the cases being so low. It has risen again as people are bringing it back into the country. They only give the vaccination now to high risk people.

i've been vaccinated.

Anyone who is worried about getting TB can get vaccinated.

I’m surprised you’re surprised.
These are diseases / infections caused and spread by living in cramped and poor conditions. However they are now being treated which must be good for everyone?

This is why foreign is important. Poor countries don't have vaccination programs like we do and they live in crowded poor conditions that spread disease and infection.

Foreign aid that should say!

I’m in Essex, so I’m well aware of all this

I used to live in London and I was near a hotel of this kind then

I’ve often wondered why we stopped giving the BCG. Fortunately, I’m of an age I’ve had it.

I’m genuinely surprised that he was allowed access into that place. It will be good in the sense that a council member of staff saying what he’s seen will possibly be taken more seriously than when the rest of us try to explain what’s there and about the free gym and the free bus travel, etc

No doubt people on here will say he’s from Reform so he must be lying.

I’m not a Reform supporter btw

Both are easily treatable. There is nothing to worry about. It proves the refugees are coming from horrendous living conditions with poor hygiene and lack of medical care. They’re not privileged chancers coming for economic reasons.

It’s good that they have a chance to be helped here.

Bully for you.
The NHS doesn’t routinely offer this now so most of us just have to suck it up that we are at risk, that medical protection exists, and our generations are just deemed too expendable to deserve what yours got handed to you on a plate. 🤦‍♀️

No you can't get vaccinated against TB if you're over 35. It is not effective in this age group.

Ffs you’re not at risk. It’s a regular course of antibiotics if you catch TB.
Vaccines were used to reduce it from endemic within the population to virtually eradicated. Once that point was reached, like most other diseases- it is in a treat as needed category.

Of course it’s not always easily treatable? There are antibiotic resistant strains of tb. And anything from a late diagnose to other pre existing conditions can mean a literal death sentence with tb. What a stupid thing to say!

I don't see anything to panic about. My DH had to be screened for TB because someone he worked with (white British) contracted it. Nobody else in the workplace caught it.

The cases of scabies and active TB are being treated.

My DC had the BCG at 6 months as in London, not sure if that’s still given? TB tends to circulate every so often in London due to high proportion of foreign born residents and can also be present in the homeless population. It tends to get dealt with quite quickly

Pretty sure I remember my kids being vaccination as newborns in 2015-2018, in London.

I hope you feel the same way when they bring something more serious with them that could be fatal and not treatable.

You mean the foreign aid we've been doling out for decades without it making any appreciable difference? Doesn't seem to matter how much money we send their way, they still continue to live in poor/crowded conditions. I don't think much of the foreign aid actually finds it's way to helping ordinary people.

When? Sorry but you are in paranoia territory there.

British tourists are FAR more likely to bring back something fatal & untreatable and also be spreading it the second they board that plane to the UK than any asylum seeker.

Asylum seekers all turn themselves in at the border, and then are kept seperate from the rest of the population while being medically checked/isolated and criminal background checked- a process that takes months before they are housed within communities.

The purpose of foreign aid isn’t to lift entire countries’ living standards. In fact, it benefits the donor country to ensure the recipient country stays reliant on their aid.

The purpose of foreign aid is to buy goodwill so that
-we aren’t targeted for terrorist attacks by any insurgents amongst them against British nationals living or visiting the country,
-our businesses are more welcome to set up shop there and get filthy rich on their cheap labour compared to countries that don’t provide foreign aid
-and so on.

All foreign aid is given with strings attached. I just can’t be bothered to list even the usual dozen.

It’s almost as though we didn’t have a pandemic a few years ago that resulted in the world being locked down. They do not all turn themselves in, if they did why do we keep having raids on businesses in my area and illegal immigrants being found? You must be very naive if you think they all turn themselves in at the border, last time I checked beaches don’t have border control and even the governments own website admits the figures they give are only the people who have been caught entering the country and the true figures are not known.

I don't find this surprising at all.

I did not have the BCG vaccination at school due to a previous allergic reaction.

I sought advice a few years ago when I was thinking about going to Egypt and was told that I should have it. I was told that in the UK it would only really be advised if I were to live in various parts of London. This was about 10 years ago so that advise may be different now.

The pandemic was spread by regular tourist and business travellers.

Ok, you are confusing victims of human trafficking or tourist overstayers or organised crime members or other illegal immigrants with asylum seekers who are not illegal immigrants and it is a requirement to turn yourself in at the border (by land, sea or air) in order to successfully claim aslyum.

I don't think this is correct.

The most recent antibiotic used to treat regular active TB in the UK is Voractiv, which is a mixture of 4 strong antibiotics and treatment lasts 6 months (last 4 months drops to 2 of those antibiotics). If you are unlucky enough to have contracted MDRTB (drug resistant TB) where the TB you have is resistant to more than one of those drugs, you are given a very harsh cocktail of pre-1950 drugs with effects close to Chemo. Treatment is about 18-24 months. The drugs are extremely 'hard to take' that you have to be directly observed taking it because it getting spread into community is dangerous. WHO needs to get assurance you're being monitored. The drugs incapacitate you, breaks you down... imagine a poor homeless person needing to take those drugs for month? Not happening.

How do I know this? I worked in a support centre in the West Midlands that I later found was rife with TB, Hepatitis, HIV etc. I'm an Aftican immigrant, been in the UK over 25years, but caught MDRTB in my 1year stint treating patients there during Covid.

During my treatment, I got to meet people with MDRTB who had TB in their brains, eyes, bone etc - there was a worldwide Facebook group then. According to the stats, majority of MDRTB comes from Eastern Europe.

Tuberculosis is no joke and needs to be controlled. Protect yourself at all cost.

@surreysarah you are right to be concerned.

Economic migrants delivering your food to the door any time soon.

Not a comment on the migrant processing centre issue, but I think TB should be taken more seriously in the UK.

I was tested for TB because I was starting immunosuppressant drugs for MS and subsequently diagnosed with latent TB despite never having visited a TB-endemic country or any risk factors. No idea how I got it. At the time in the midst of the pandemic, the TB rates in north London were higher than the covid ones!

The antibiotics I had to take just for latent TB were pretty brutal, not similar to those you'd get for a UTI. I think I had to take them four times a day for months and they turned all my bodily fluids orange.

I was a little to young for the blanket BCG jab at school, and am annoyed about this now. I think we should still be vaccinating for it. It's an absolute travesty that a disease that can be vaccinated for and which has treatments is killing so many around the world.