Simit Epidemiological Multicentric Study on Hospitalized Immigrants in Italy During 2002

Abstract

The aim of this article is to retrospectively evaluate the patient characteristics and the most common infectious diseases in immigrant patients hospitalized in 46 Italian infectious disease clinics during 2002. The main Italian infectious disease clinics were invited to fill in a questionnaire that regarded the number and type of hospital admissions, the country of origin, and demographic features (age, sex, and resident state) of immigrants. A total of 46 clinics including 2255 patients participated in the study. Most patients were men (63%) with an age between 16 and 40 years (63.4%) covered by the National Health Service (71%) and coming from Africa (44.3%). The main infectious diseases observed were: 378 (16.76%) cases of HIV infection, 303 (13.43%) cases of tuberculosis diseases, 282 (12.5%) cases of various forms of viral hepatitis, 177 (7.84%) cases of respiratory diseases, and 196 (8.69%) gastrointestinal diseases. Tropical diseases found were 134 (5.94%) including 95 cases of malaria (70.9%). In conclusion, a broad range of diseases was noted in immigrants which were directly correlated with conditions of poverty. Only a few tropical diseases were diagnosed and therefore the immigrant should not be considered as an infectious disease carrier.

Prevalence of HBV genotypes in South American immigrants affected by HBV-related chronic active hepatitis

“…We have tested 130 subjects: the major part was from Brazil and it reflects the actual prevalent migratory flow to Italy, prevalently characterized by people coming from Brazil and, less frequently, from Colombia, Chile and Ecuador. Amongst this population, 14 subjects (10.7%) resulted HBsAg positive and this rate was alike to similar observations presented in Italian and international literature [11,12] No cases of co-infection were observed. All of these subjects presented elevated serum ALT levels and detectable serum HBV-DNA in PCR.…”

“…All of these subjects presented elevated serum ALT levels and detectable serum HBV-DNA in PCR. The data about the elevated ALT levels is surprising, because many studies have evidenced that in immigrant subjects, particularly in sub-Saharan African population, but also in South American people, HBV infection is characterized by an elevated prevalence (> 8%), but many infected subjects (a variable rate of 40-65% in the different studies) not present biochemical activity of diseases [11,14,15]. Probably, our data is connected with the low number of infected subjects.…”

“…Some recent studies have evidenced that in immigrants the prevalent infectious diseases are represented by HIV, tuberculosis and chronic viral hepatitis, more frequently caused by HBV [11][12][13][14][15]. People coming from South America represent about 20% of total immigrants in Italy and they are an important community in our country.…”

The Changing Face of Canadian Immigration: Implications for Infectious Diseases

“…An epidemiological survey (8) was conducted in 46 Italian health centres in 2002, examining the number and type of hospital and outpatient clinic admissions among immigrants. They evaluated 2555 immigrants (6% of the total patient population), of whom 44% were from Africa, 20% from Asia and 22% from eastern Europe.…”

“…They evaluated 2555 immigrants (6% of the total patient population), of whom 44% were from Africa, 20% from Asia and 22% from eastern Europe. The three main infectious diseases seen were HIV infection (16.8%), tuberculosis ([TB]; 13.4%) and viral hepatitis (12.5%), with so-called tropical infections (eg, malaria, dengue and schistosomiasis) seen in only 5.8% of admissions in immigrants, the majority (70.4%) of whom had malaria (8). HIV and TB were most common in African immigrants, whereas eastern Europeans accounted for the largest proportion of viral hepatitis (8).…”