The international journal of tuberculosis and lung disease : the official journal of the International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease
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Int. J. Tuberc. Lung Dis. · May 2017
Time lag between immigration and tuberculosis rates in immigrants in the Netherlands: a time-series analysis.
In low-incidence countries, most tuberculosis (TB) cases are foreign-born. We explored the temporal relationship between immigration and TB in first-generation immigrants between 1995 and 2012 to assess whether immigration can be a predictor for TB in immigrants from high-incidence countries. ⋯ The absence of a lag in the Moroccan and Turkish population may be attributed to the relatively low TB prevalence in the countries of origin and an increased likelihood of reactivation TB in an ageing immigrant population. Understanding the time lag between Somali immigration and TB disease would benefit from a closer epidemiological analysis of cohorts of Somali cases diagnosed within the first years after entry.