U.S. Immigrants Bearing More of the TB Burden

July 23 -- TUESDAY, July 22 (HealthDay News) -- In 2006, 57 percent of all tuberculosis cases in the United State were among foreign-born individuals and, as time passes, that population is under increased threat from the disease, a new study warns.

Between 1993 and 2006, the total number of cases of TB in the United States decreased by 45 percent -- from more than 25,000 to less than 14,000. However, that decline occurred primarily among people born in the United States, note researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"The number of cases among U.S. born individuals has been reduced by 66 percent whereas, among the foreign-born population, during the same period, the number increased by 5 percent, thus widening the disparity between the two groups," said study author Dr. Kevin P. Cain. His report appears in the July 23/30 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Needless to say, experts are anxious to find ways to control and eliminate the disease. Testing the more than 37 million foreign-born individuals currently living in the United States isn't feasible, so officials are focusing their efforts on people before they immigrate.

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In the study, Cain's team reviewed 46,970 cases of TB among foreign-born individuals in the United States. They discovered that an immigrant's risk for TB was highest during the early years after first arriving in the United States, varied with age (older people had a higher risk), and also varied by country of birth.

"We found that over 50 percent of all cases of TB among foreign-born persons occurred among 20 percent of the overall foreign-born populations, especially persons born mainly in Southeast Asia [particularly the Philippines and Vietnam] and sub-Saharan Africa," said Cain, a medical epidemiologist with the division of tuberculosis elimination at the CDC. "This is actually quite helpful because it means you can try to prevent as many case as possible by focusing your efforts on the highest-risk population," he said.