Abstract
BackgroundLarge numbers of Latin American immigrants recently arrived in Western Europe. Curative and preventive programmes need to take account of their risk of suffering and transmitting imported chronic infections and of their susceptibility to cosmopolitan infections. We aimed to assess the prevalence and co-occurrence of imported chronic infections among Latin American immigrants, and their susceptibility to highly prevalent cosmopolitan infections.MethodsAdult participants were recruited in the community and in a primary health centre in Geneva in 2008. Serological tests were performed on stored sera for HIV, HBV, syphilis, Strongyloides stercoralis, Trypanosoma cruzi, varicella and measles. We considered only chronic active infections in the analysis.Results and discussionThe 1 012 participants, aged 37.2 (SD 11.3) years, were mostly female (82.5 %) and Bolivians (48 %). Overall, 209 (20.7 %) had at least one and 27 (2.7 %) two or more chronic infections. T. cruzi (12.8 %) and S. stercoralis (8.4 %) were the most prevalent chronic active infections compared to syphilis (0.4 %), HBV (0.4 %) and HIV (1.4 %). Concomitant infections affected 28.2 and 18.5 % of T. cruzi and S. stercoralis infected cases. Bolivian origin (aOR: 13.6; 95 % CI: 3.2–57.9) was associated with risk of multiple infections. Susceptibilities for VZV and measles were 0.7 and 1.4 %, respectively. Latin American immigrants are at risk of complications and possible reactivation of chronic parasitic infections but have overall low risks of chronic viral and syphilitic active infections.ConclusionsSystematic screening for chronic active parasitic infections is therefore necessary especially among Bolivians. The high protection rate against measles and VZV doesn’t require specific preventive interventions.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40249-016-0136-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Large numbers of Latin American immigrants recently arrived in Western Europe
Chronic forms of Hepatitis B [11], human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) [12], syphilis [13] and Strongyloides stercoralis [14] infections are more prevalent in Latin America than in Western Europe
This study aims at assessing the prevalence and the co-occurrence of HIV, hepatitis B, syphilis, S. stercoralis and T. cruzi (Chagas disease) infection and the susceptibility to varicella-zoster and measles virus among Latin American immigrants in the community, and to compare Bolivians to migrants from other origins
Summary
Curative and preventive programmes need to take account of their risk of suffering and transmitting imported chronic infections and of their susceptibility to cosmopolitan infections. We aimed to assess the prevalence and co-occurrence of imported chronic infections among Latin American immigrants, and their susceptibility to highly prevalent cosmopolitan infections. The emergence of Chagas disease in Europe has been shown to result from (i) the rapid influx of people from endemic countries, the majority being women of child-bearing age susceptible to vertically transmit T. cruzi, (ii) insufficient pre-existing health policies, (iii) lack of health professionals awareness and (iv) delayed responses of healthcare systems [5, 6]. Previous studies showed that Latinos immigrants in Europe bear a significant risk of chronic infections with a potential of reactivation and transmission, such as Chagas disease and latent tuberculosis [5, 7]. A better understanding of the activity, distribution and overlap of these diseases within the Latino community in Europe is necessary to implement appropriate clinical and public health strategies
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