Drug users at risk from TB

Illicit drug injectors are at serious risk of catching tuberculosis, with 67 per cent of users testing positive for the infection in a recent study.

According to research published today, more than two thirds of injection drug users in Tijuana, Mexico, tested positive for TB.

In the bi-national collaborative study by investigators from Mexico and the United States, 1,025 illegal drug injectors living in Mexico’s largest US border city were tested for TB.

Results showed that injection drug users had a 64 per cent higher risk of having TB than non-drug users. These odds increased by 20 per cent for every five years of reported injection drug use.

People with latent TB are not sick and therefore not contagious, as the TB bacteria become inactive because the immune system prevents them from growing.

But if the immune system is weakened, for example by Aids, TB can become active, causing coughing which helps spread the bacteria to others.

Dr Rafael Laniado-Laborin, co-investigator of the study, said: “This at-risk population urgently needs better screening and treatment for TB.”

He concluded that treatment can reduce TB reactivation by nearly 75 per cent.