“White plague” spreading in Europe, London is TB capital

A warning this week from the World Health Organization states that Drug-resistant Tuberculosis is reaching “alarming” (epidemic?) levels in Europe.

From Reuters:

LONDON, Sept 14 (Reuters) – Multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant forms of tuberculosis (TB) are spreading at an alarming rate in Europe and will kill thousands unless health authorities halt the pandemic, the World Health Organisation(WHO) said on Wednesday.

Launching a new regional plan to find, diagnose and treat cases of the airborne infectious disease more effectively, the WHO’s European director warned that complacency had allowed a resurgence of TB and failure to tackle it now would mean huge human and economic costs in the future.

“TB is an old disease that never went away, and now it is evolving with a vengeance,” said Zsuzsanna Jakab, the WHO’s Regional Director for Europe.

“The numbers are scary,” Lucica Ditiu, executive secretary of the Stop TB Partnership told a news conference in London. “This is a very dramatic situation.”

Neither the Reuters story or the official release from the WHO mentions the words “immigrant” or “immigration” but this report from Russia Today does.  Calling it the “white plague,” RT says the blame for the spread is immigration from countries with high incidents of TB and poverty (watch the video report too).  Update:  This story from Malta tells us that the UK is at the top of the list in many categories for the number of immigrants it allows to enter the country.

Known as the ‘white plague’ in 19th Century England, tuberculosis is now increasingly a modern-day menace for those living in the UK. Viewed as the TB capital of Western Europe, the illness outbreak in Britain has been connected to both poverty and immigration. But as RT’s Laura Emmet discovered, the infection is now spreading beyond those high risk groups.

Readers should know that refugees are admitted to the US with TB.  Of course the volags and the US State Department are always quick to say it’s “latent” TB and not “active.”   However, we all know that the volags often lose track of refugees three months after resettlement, so who is following refugees around to make sure they finish their course of meds?

Remember a Somali working in a Tyson Foods plant in Emporia, Kansas in 2007 died of TB in the plant, here.  Needless to say, it didn’t make the nightly news!

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