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Summarized by Rosemary Pollock
Utah Asks Returning LDS Missionaries To Get TB Checks
Salt Lake Tribune 24Mar00 N1
By Norma Wagner: Salt Lake Tribune
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH -- International travelers from Utah, including
missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
are being encouraged by Utah State Health Department officials to be
tested for tuberculosis. They face a high risk of contracting
tuberculosis and should be tested for the infectious disease when
they return home, according to state health officials.
"The population contracting the disease is changing," said Teresa Garrett,
bureau director of the state health department's HIV, tuberculosis control
and refugee program. Utah's TB rate was lower in 1999 than the previous
year, with 40 vs. 52 cases. More foreign-born residents, including women
and foreign travelers, are getting and spreading the disease. In the past,
male prison inmates, the homeless and those abusing substances mainly
contributed to the higher-than-average national figures in the state.
"More women are exposed to TB in foreign countries than the U.S.," said
Garrett. From 1995 to 1999, foreign-born residents with TB averaged about
15 percent of all state cases. Now they make up at least 55 percent of
those with TB. Men used to make up 80 percent, but now women account for 40
percent of all TB cases. The increase is credited to more women from
developing countries who are traveling to Utah and looking for better paying
jobs.
"Health department workers have just recently started to track
foreign-born travelers," Garrett added, "so they don't have comparable
numbers." It is estimated that about 10 people contracted TB from foreign
sources in the past two years." "I'm talking about anyone who does
international travel, including missionaries." "I want to convey the
concern of an international epidemic of tuberculosis and the way it comes
home to Utah," Garrett said during a state health department news conference
Thursday.
The most common foreign travel destinations to contract the disease are
the former Soviet Union, Southeast Asia, Africa and parts of Central and
South America. "Anyone who spends time in those places should be screened
with an arm-skin test," she said. The good news is there is a decrease in
the drug resistant strains of the disease in Utah.
The improvement is credited to Utah public health workers engaging in
"directly observed therapy." Health officials visit TB patients daily to
make sure they are taking their medications. "A big part of the problem is
this is often a segment of our population that we call invisible," said
Monte Hanks, care coordinator of Wasatch Homeless Health Care Inc., which
includes the Fourth Street Clinic. "It's a challenge and very difficult to
make sure they have the same access to [health care] treatment that we do,"
Hanks said. Utah's TB rate has fluctuated, yet remained basically stable
over the past five years with an average of 50 annual cases, Garrett
reported.
According to Richard Kanner of the University of Utah Division of
Respiratory Critical Care and Occupational Medicine, the symptoms of TB
range in early onset from no symptoms to full-blown infection to fatigue;
weight loss, fever and night sweats; to coughing up blood and green-colored
sputum. "We have to look at this disease globally, not just locally or even
nationally," Kanner said. "It is a threat worldwide."
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