Tuberculosis control in homeless persons in European Union - more than just words

Abstract

Rob van Hest1, Alistair Story2

1Municipal Public Health Service Rotterdam, Holland, 2Health Protection Agency, London. Great Britain)

Contact: vanhestr@ggd.rotterdam.nl

ABSTRACT
In Europe, in the countries with low incidence of tuberculosis (TB), a concentration of the disease is noted in subgroups of metropolitan population: socially excluded, homeless persons, drug and alcohol addicts, with psychiatric co-morbidities, ex-inmates. Homeless persons have limited access to health services, present with advanced forms of TB, the compliance to treatment is reduced, making way to uncontrolled transmision of TB and selection of resistant strains.
In February 2008, ECDC (European Center for Disease Control) in consultancy with European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless proposed a framework action plan to fight TB in EU with 4 principles: providing prompt and good quality medical assistance for all, improving accessibility to health systems, stimulating the operational component of TB control, creating partnerships with countries and corporations.
The authors describe the dutch model for TB control: hospital facilities connected to community based public health initiatives.
There is need for EU mediated mutual expertise exchanges for identifying the „best practice" and development of specific trainig activities. There is also need for EU actions for supporting the collaboration between partner organizations in member states, for imposing the strategic directions and the base of medical policies and for providing consultancy.
Keywords: tuberculosis, homeless persons, action plan

Files