Family members of staff working at the Refugee Commission are extremely concerned about their relatives contracting TB from immigrants in detention centres due to inadequate medical testing.

When the immigrants arrive in Malta, they are immediately transported to the detention centres and taken for a medical check-up the day after.

However, although members of staff are assured that when they interview the immigrants these have been medically cleared, they are only tested for active TB.

The staff also take all the necessary medical precautions and are vaccinated for tuberculosis and hepatitis.

Tuberculosis can be either latent or active: latent TB is not infectious even though the person has the TB-causing bacteria. However, they can still develop active TB.

Active TB means the infection is spreading and if it spreads to the lungs, the person becomes contagious.

What is worrying the families is that TB usually has an incubation period of between eight to 10 weeks but once the immigrants are cleared of active TB they are immediately placed in the detention centres.

“If an immigrant has active TB, there is a possibility that eight weeks might pass until he is diagnosed; in the meantime he will come into contact with other immigrants, AFM soldiers and voluntary helpers,” they said.

Sources told The Malta Independent on Sunday that there are five immigrants with active TB who are undergoing treatment at Safi detention centre.

A few months ago, a soldier casually informed them that an immigrant they had interviewed at one of the detention centres had been diagnosed with active TB.

With this information in mind, all the staff at the Refugee Commission went to take the TB test again and it resulted that five out of an office of 13 members had dormant TB. Three were told to start the preventive treatment for TB.

When certain members of staff approached their superiors about the problem, their first reaction was to tell them that they knew what they were going in for when they took the job, and if they didn’t like it they could resign.

However, the entire office panicked and as a result a high level meeting was held last week with high-ranking officials from Public Health, the Refugee Commission and Minister for Justice and Home Affairs Tonio Borg.

After the meeting was over, the Public Health officials spoke to the staff. They informed them that immigrants are only screened twice for active TB: when they arrive in Malta’s shores and when they leave the detention centres.

The staff working at the Refugee Commission was also informed that they do not have the right to know if an immigrant at an open centre or detention centre has active TB. Even though five out of 13 were found to have raised levels of dormant TB, it was not a good enough reason to carry out further tests on the immigrants.

However, what annoyed the staff most was that the Public Health officials stated that the positive results were just a coincidence and had no connection with the immigrants.

In that case, the family member pointed out, it is also a “coincidence” that 32 AFM soldiers were found to have dormant TB in 2006 compared to the nine soldiers in 2002.

The Public Health officials also informed them they had three options to choose from if they have TB.

The first was to follow a three-month intensive preventive treatment, or to go for regular check-ups and chest X-rays.

Finally, they were informed to go and visit their doctor immediately if they coughed up blood.

“What made the whole matter worse was the absolute lack of compassion from their superiors and the health authorities who simply informed them that they were panicking,” he said.

Facts about TB

• At least one-third of the world’s population is thought to be infected with TB bacteria, Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

• TB is a chronic bacterial infection. It is airborne and usually infects the lungs, although other organs and parts of the body can be involved as well.

• Most people who are infected with M. tuberculosis have latent TB, but some will develop active TB disease.

• According to World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates, eight million people worldwide develop active TB and nearly two million die each year.

• TB spreads when a person who has active TB exhales air with TB- bacteria and another person inhales the bacteria from the air.