Tuberculosis In Migrants Is Among The Challenges Of Tuberculosis Control In High-Income Countries

Tuberculosis (TB) is a chronic infectious disease caused by mycobacterium species, which transmits during coughing or sneezing. The main source of infection is patients with smear-positive TB. Any person can be infected with mycobacterium TB and about one-third of the world's people are infected, which indicates the risk of reactivation of TB among them.1 Globally TB is a top infectious cause of death. In 2019, there were an estimated 1.4 million TB deaths and an estimated 10 millionThe incidence of tuberculosis (TB) is high among migrants in high-income countries. The migration process could contribute to the high incidence of TB among them. Achieving TB elimination from these settings will be difficult unless countries address the burden of TB among migrants. The aim of this review was to describe the challenges of international migration on TB control in high-income, low TB incidence countries. Among migrants, there is a high prevalence of risk factors for TB, such as exposure to TB, HIV, malnutrition, substance use, delayed diagnosis, low education, poor health-seeking, the culture, stigma and marginalization. Discriminatory policies of TB care and social barriers such as language, cultural issues and unfriendly health services may also contribute to the high prevalence of TB among them. TB control among migrants in these settings is important as migrants are vulnerable to TB infection and disease, and implementing TB care among them is difficult; it is important to reduce the TB burden in migrants and the community at large and the high risk of multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB). TB elimination from high-income countries requires acquiring data and analyzing it to measure the burden, having migrant-sensitive health systems, having policy and legal frameworks and multi country partnerships and conducting research.