Thousands of immigrants enter Britain without a tuberculosis test

Daily Mail:

Major doubts about the effectiveness of a scheme to protect Britons from immigrants with an infectious disease were raised in an official report today.

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) said there was "considerable concern" over tuberculosis screening at ports and airports.

Out of an annual 270,000 people entering the UK from high-risk countries for more than six months, only about 73,000 - or 27 per cent - were given X-ray screening.

Less than seven out of 10 of these high-risk arrivals were even referred for screening at all, the report added.

There were up to 100 diagnoses of TB as a result, it said.

"Even if all designated cases were in fact screened, perhaps 150 cases per year of TB would be identified, but it is unclear what proportion might be a public health risk," said the study by the HPA.

In comparison, there are 7,000 cases of TB diagnosed in Britain each year.

HPA experts said they had "major doubts about the effectiveness and efficiency of the programme" at ports and airports, and made 24 recommendations for improvement.

Shadow home secretary David Davis said: "This is yet another alarming report demonstrating the Government's failure to provide adequate protection at our borders.

"We eliminated TB as a major public health risk in this country but now the Government's failure is once again putting the most vulnerable people in our country at risk of infection."

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