Prevalence of tuberculosis in migrant children in Switzerland and relevance of current screening guidelines

Author(s) : Myriam Boukamel, Yves Fougère, Mario Gehri, Joan Carles Suris, Isabelle Rochat, Damien Miletto, Spyridoula Kyrilli, Athina Fouriki, Pierre Alex Crisinel

Source : https://doi.org/10.4414/smw.2020.20253

Abstract:

“Since 2016, Swiss guidelines recommend screening of all migrant children <5 years of age for tuberculosis (TB) and to screen older children only if they have risk factors for tuberculosis. Our goals were to describe the epidemiology of latent tuberculosis in migrant children at the Lausanne University Hospital, to identify determinants of latent tuberculosis and tuberculosis disease, and to evaluate the risk of a false-positive tuberculin skin test when using a positivity limit of 5 mm.”

Keywords: latent tuberculosis, tuberculosis disease, migrant children, tuberculin skin test, TB-Spot, false-positive tuberculin skin test, paediatrics, infectious disease