[Immigration and tuberculosis. Five year experience]

Immigrants are a tuberculosis risk group. In Portugal, in 2000, they had an incidence rate 3.6 times higher than the global incidence, and were native, predominantly, from Angola and Cabo Verde. Being the Chest Disease Center of Venda Nova located in a residential area with a great number of immigrants, most of them living in slums, we decided to evaluate the tuberculosis cases in this group, between 1996/2000, comparing the data obtained with some data of the tuberculosis cases in the non-immigrants. Immigrants with tuberculosis corresponded to 24.5% of all cases, 71.4% male, 93.9% black and mostly native from Cabo Verde and Angola. 73% lived in Portugal for more than 5 years, 86.7% were new cases and 13.3% relapses. 174 were pulmonary forms, 70.7% of which were D+ and 81% confirmed (against 75% in the non-immigrants). Of the 91 drug susceptibility tests done in the pulmonary forms, 9.9% revealed multidrug resistance, against 5% in the non-immigrants. Twenty six point six percent had AIDS against 18% in the non-immigrants. Some conclusions: important percentage of immigrants with tuberculosis in the Chest Disease Center of Venda Nova; immigrants have a higher confirmation rate of pulmonary tuberculosis, more multidrug resistance and AIDS cases.