Infectious disease testing of UK-bound refugees: a population-based, cross-sectional study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The UK, like a number of other countries, has a refugee resettlement programme. External factors, such as higher prevalence of infectious diseases in the country of origin and circumstances of travel, are likely to increase the infectious disease risk of refugees, but published data is scarce. The International Organization for Migration carries out and collates data on standardised pre-entry health assessments (HA), including testing for infectious diseases, on all UK refugee applicants as part of the resettlement programme. From this data, we report the yield of selected infectious diseases (tuberculosis (TB), HIV, syphilis, hepatitis B and hepatitis C) and key risk factors with the aim of informing public health policy.

Methods

We examined a large cohort of ref

SUBMITTER: Crawshaw AF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6112114 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature