NEWS

Rise in cases of TB is a concern

Only a third of tuberculosis cases in Greece are recorded each year, doctors said yesterday, as concern grows that a rise in the potentially fatal disease has been prompted by a growing influx of migrants who have not been vaccinated. Speaking at a conference in Athens yesterday ahead of World Tuberculosis Day tomorrow, doctors said that some 750 cases of the disease are recorded in Greece every year – a relatively low figure. In the UK, for example, 8,000 cases are recorded each year. In 2000, the number of migrants testing positive for TB in Greece made up 10 percent of patients; now they comprise more than 30 percent. Around four in 10 migrants who suffer from tuberculosis are from the Balkans. Tuberculosis is a bacterial infection that usually affects a person’s lungs. Antibiotics can cure it but each year up to 2.5 million people worldwide are killed by the disease.

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