Study: TB in homeless alarmingly high

TORONTO, Feb. 18 (UPI) -- Twenty percent of homeless people with tuberculosis die within one year of their diagnosis, researchers in Canada found.

Dr. Kamran Khan of St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto says the TB rate in homeless people remains unchanged over the last decade despite recommendations calling for greater improvements in prevention and control of tuberculosis in homeless shelters.

In 2001, a provincial coroner's inquest into the death of a homeless man who died of tuberculosis in Toronto made 13 formal recommendations that included provincial funding for a centralized clinic system to provide specialized care for those with tuberculosis in Ontario and improvement of homeless shelter ventilation systems.

However, implementation of the recommendations has fallen short, so the number of homeless people dying of TB within one year of diagnosis remains unchanged over the last decade, the researchers say.

"The treatment of tuberculosis is often complicated by inadequate housing, substance dependence, language barriers, mental health problems, not to mention the enormous stigma that comes with this disease," Khan says in a statement. "To effectively control tuberculosis, centers with specialized expertise and resources are needed to address these complex issues."

The study, scheduled to be published in the March issue of the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, also finds 40 percent of all TB cases in the homeless were in immigrants and about 56 percent of all TB in immigrants involved strains likely acquired in other parts of the world where drug resistance is common.