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?

Read everything is tuberculosis by John Green. Good history of the spread and treatment over time. Best summarised as the disease is where the drugs are not. We could absolutely cure TB globally if there was the political will to make affordable treatment available. As there isn't, we will have to put up with travelling people bringing it with them to countries that have already eradicated it.

The migrants are in fact the ones I see spitting in the streets, too. I think we need a leaflet about it.

When I emigrated to the United States more than 50 years ago from England, I had to undergo medical tests to make sure I was healthy and not carrying anything nasty. I remember blood tests being done and a chest x-ray. The U.S. was so very concerned about people bringing in TB that I had to carry my TB negative chest images with me on the plane to the U.S.

It astounds me that the UK, with 'free' healthcare is allowing people into the UK without checking for anything contagious. At least they are doing criminal background checks, and making sure they are fully sponsored so they won't be reliant on the government/public.

IMO its something that pisses a lot of people off especially after the carry on during Covid

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr5z6p7nm7lo

It has been noted.

You need to be in close prolonged contact to catch TB off someone, so in every day contact, and much more likely if you are living with someone who has it. The Deliveroo person is not going to give you TB, unless you are inviting them to come in every day and spend a few hours in your house. So can the poster who is obsessed with that idea please educate themselves.

I haven't kept up with what's going on there as much since my dear parents died. I did see the palaver concerning covid over there. I saw a video of a drove of police arresting someone for sitting down on park bench when they were out for a walk with their dog. All I could think of is how I enjoy a little sit down when out and about.

SW … our local city FB group last night, was full of women complaining about scabies and the difficulty of getting rid of it. Made me feel quite itchy and worried about taking the bus.

The consensus seemed to be that the local NHS hospital rather than migrants in general are to blame - I was quite surprised given the usual tone of posts. I don’t have any opinion to offer, it’s a subject about which I’m completely uninformed.

You can't catch TB off someone with latent TB so why does it matter if someone has it or not?

If they come from a country where they don't have the BCG, or the vaccine was given more than 5 years ago then yes there will be a higher population of people with TB.

I still have my BCH scar from over 30 years ago!

Better than TB though.

Yes, I had the BCG as a child in my home country. DS got it when he was born in London in 2012, but I was interested to see that no one recognised the characteristic BCG mark when we moved to the midlands when he was still a baby — both his childminder and the HV asked me separately was it a burn mark!

I get the same question about my smallpox vaccination scar.

I live in a small market town. Up until recently we had 2 migrant hotels. The residents roam freely with no restrictions.

Scabies was found at one of them. No one was allowed out for a couple of days while whoever is in charge did what needed doing and then they opened up again and it was back to business as usual.

I find the reports of TB concerning. I haven’t been vaccinated because I had a reaction to the test jab so they wouldn’t do it.

The 'test jab' that was a stamper thing and you came up with a ring of little red dots (or more)?

That means you have natural immunity and you don't need vaccination.

Part of the problem is the high risk communities (Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Sub-Saharan Africa etc) often do not engage with public health initiatives and with hold consent for their children to be vaccinated.

The UK is right in the cusp of losing its status as a country with low incidence of TB as per WHO definition (low is less than 10 per 100,000 people and uk currently at 9.4).

It’s yet another negative for uncontrolled migration. If you were for example, trying to get a visa for Australia, you be rigorously medically vetted and possibly refused entry. But as we know, anyone can get into the UK carrying god knows what!

I think we will see widespread TB vaccination re-introduced into the childhood vaccination schedule again soon.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/tuberculosis-in-england-2025-report/1-tuberculosis-incidence-and-epidemiology-england-2024

I think I was taken aback because I had no idea it wasn’t a standard vaccine for UK babies, and because it’s such a familiar mark to me.

My grandmother died of TB a long time ago as did two of my uncles as small children, and my late DM and other uncle both had TB scars in their lungs. DM had to go for a chest x-ray every few years to have it checked out. Uncle died of pneumonia in the end, and having had TB as a child wouldn't have helped.

I had the BCG and to be honest, although the disease is treatable with antibiotics, they really ought to bring the vaccination back again.

How long is it effective for? I had mine almost 50 years ago.

DD had hers as baby but that wasn't in the UK.

If it happens again, it won't be because of TB.
I am not being blase about TB it is a dangerous disease and personally I think the jab should be more widely available/part of the childhood vaccine programme. But, it's not anything like as contagious as COVID. The stats people are stating about 80/90% of people diagnosed with TB being born overseas proves this- in most cases the TB will also have been contracted overseas often during childhood and often still lying dormant. A disease that has been running at a low level in the country with 80-90% of the people who have it consistently having caught the disease overseas is a disease which has been consistently well contained. Otherwise you would have had an exponentially rising number of "native cases". People are using it to stir concern about migrants but it's actually just a sign it is being managed well in this country.

Contagious diseases, like COVID, couldn't be stopped by only restricting migration from high risk countries/isolating high risk groups like "migrants". All you needed was one business person on their way back from China to Europe. Because it was so contagious it didn't stick to one group. If there is another pandemic, the main vector and the main risk won't be asylum seekers because they only make up 0.6% of the global population. It will be everyone that travels for any reason.

One "downside" of the TB vaccination is that it can create "false positives" for actual TB. Because someone with latent TB or active TB or who has been effectively vaccinated will have antibodies against it in their blood and that's what is tested for.
Not everyone scars post the vaccine so it's more important to keep careful records of it than other vaccinations, otherwise it can cause confusion later. There are probably cases of "TB" detected in asylum centres that are actually people who were vaccinated and lost the documents/forgot/ their parents died. The NHS is very good at keeping records etc but I think if they were to bring back TB vaccines you would need to do it in a way where it's either all encompassing or very well recorded and taken account of when sampling the prevalence of TB. Otherwise down the line you could either get unnecessary panics (overcautious estimates of TB prevalence includes all the "false positives" in the stats and it looks like loads of people have it). OR it creates a false complacency (assuming positive antibodies are because of the vaccine not actual TB)

The other way to properly check for TB is X-rays, but for obvious reasons we don't randomly do that on members of the public for no reason. Its useful as a diagnostic on individuals already showing symptoms or positive antibodies. But if you test a bunch of people with no paperwork in a hotel and they come back with positive antibodies it's safer to assume they have TB than that they are vaccinated. And then you have scary headlines.

I do think we should have the BCG vaccine brought back. But people need to be aware that it is likely to make it look like there are higher numbers of people with positive infections in the future. And that there may well be scary headlines about that.

Beware scary headlines basically.

I wrote a very long ramble post about anti-bodies but there are tests that will tell you if you have the antibodies in your blood. There isn't a set length of time it lasts for but for many people the anti-bodies will stick around for a long time. I don't know if it's possible to get tested for those to check if the vaccine is working though. Usually they do them to check if you might have TB

(If they didn't k ow anything about your medical history (and if you couldn't provide it) and tested for anti-bodies though they wouldn't be able to tell if it was because you had a vaccine that was still working or if you had actual TB. It's the same anti-bodies. Likewise your DD and it's partly that that is boosting the stats for people born outside the UK having TB. At least some of them won't actually have TB and instead have forgotten they were vaccinated)

So you think I, a legal taxpaying citizen should have to wait a month for a GP appointment?

Did I say that?

That's a hyperbolic response. You need the famous MN grip.

I don't know. Why are we admitting people who might have a transmittable disease and have to be told in a pamphlet not to rape or assault women?