High refugee disease rate

Press, 20 September 1982, Page 26

High refugee disease rate

NZPA Washington The General Accounting Office (G.A.0.), an investigative arm of Congress, has said that Indo-China refugees have come into the United States with tuberculosis, leprosy, and other diseases because of cursory examinations in refugee camps. A G.A.O. report said high rates of tuberculosis were found among the refugees in all seven states it visited. Cases of leprosy were found in California, Texas, Washington, Maryland, and Virginia. Tuberculosis rates among the refugees ranged from 195

per 100,000 in Los Angeles to 2272 per 100,000 in Fairfax County, Virginia, it said. It had found 19 cases of leprosy among refugees in Texas, all being treated. The G.A.O. blamed the high incidence of disease on what it called the cursory medical examinations its investigators saw in six refugee centres in Asia. Ambassador Eugene Douglas, United States Co-ordina-tor for Refugee Affairs, said American officials had begun to improve screening procedures to detect tuberculosis and other diseases at Asian centres.