THE FREQUENCY OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES IN MIGRANTS TO A WESTERN EUROPE COUNTRY: A POPULATION BASED STUDY

Background: Migration to Western Europe increased substantially in the last decades, mainly from low and middle-income Eastern European, Asian, African and South American countries. The aim of this population-based study was to assess the incidence rates (IRs) of infectious diseases in native- and foreign-born populations living in the Brescia Local Health District, North Italy, (1,147,537 inhabitants, 13.1% foreign-born people on 31st December 2009) in 2006-2010. Methods: The cases were classified as foreign- or native-born subjects according to the country of birth. Crude, age-specific incidence rates (IRs) and age-standardised rate ratios (SRRs) were calculated for each disease, for foreign- and native-born populations separately. All the rates refer to 104 persons per year. IRs were calculated for foreign-born people by region of origin according to the WHO region groupings and age-standardised rate ratios (SRRs) between IRs in foreign- and native-born subjects and their 95% confidence intervals (CI) were estimated using common statistical methods for epidemiology. Results: 32,554 cases of infectious diseases were found (9.9% in foreign-born subjects). The highest SRRs between foreign- and native-born subjects were found for tuberculosis (SRR= 27.1; 95% CI:21.3-34.3), malaria (SRR=21.1; 14.6-30.4), scabies (SRR=8.5; 7.6-9.4), AIDS (SRR=2.5; 1.8-3.4) and viral hepatitis B (SRR=3.3; 2.1-5.2). The highest IR was found for AIDS in people from the Americas (IR= 4.57; 95% CI:2.2-8.4), for malaria and tuberculosis in people from Africa (IR=13.89; 11.6-16.5 and IR=11.87; 9.8-14.3 respectively), for scabies in people from South-East Asia (IR=33.17; 29.5-37.2). Conclusions: Migrants are at a higher risk of acquiring some common infectious diseases compared to the native population.