Gatwick failing to stop TB entering country - reports.

Nov 18, 2008
GATWICK is failing to adequately check arriving immigrants for tuberculosis, is has been claimed.

Health experts have told a national newspaper the airport's x-ray scans are not enough to halt the continued rise of tuberculosis (TB) due to immigrants carrying the disease.

The inadequate checks could allow tens of thousands of immigrants to potentially enter the country carrying the disease.

Dr Andrew Freedman, senior lecturer in infectious diseases at Cardiff University, told the Independent on Sunday: "Simply doing a chest X-ray is not an adequate assessment of any patient.

"A normal X-ray does not rule out TB."
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Gatwick's x-ray checks are, it has been claimed, not adequate for TB screening because immigrants may also be HIV positive.

A spokesman for the Health Protection Agency, commenting on the reports, said: "We estimate that the X-ray programme at Heathrow and Gatwick identifies around 100 cases of TB a year.

"The key to reducing TB in the UK remains early diagnosis and treatment, and effective contact tracing."

TB is a deadly disease that includes symptoms such as coughing up blood.

Source: This Is Sussex