Two hundred and ninety-six refugees were diagnosed with active tuberculosis (TB) between 2010 and 2014 in Minnesota, according to the Minnesota Department of Health.

Seventy-one were diagnosed within one year of their arrival, while 225 were diagnosed after the first year, but within five years of their arrival.

The number of active TB cases reported among refugees arriving in Minnesota is ten times higher than reported in any of the fourteen other states that have released refugee TB data to the public, or made it available to Breitbart News.

The previous high among the other reporting states was Wisconsin, which reported 27 cases of active TB among refugees arriving in the state between 2014 and 2015.

The other thirteen states, and the number of diagnosed cases of active TB among refugees are:

With 296 cases of active TB diagnosed among refugees over five years, Minnesota reported more cases than all fourteen other states where that data has been made available — a combined total of 172 cases.

The total number of active TB cases diagnosed among refugees resettled in the United States in recent years now stands at 468, but 36 states have yet to report their number. Data reported in several of the fourteen states in which there is some data (Ohio, North Dakota, Kentucky, and Tennessee) is only partial, and in other states (California, and Indiana) covers only the most recent year, rather than the five most recent years.

The Minnesota Department of Health provided Breitbart News with this statement when asked why Minnesota has reported ten times more active TB cases among refugees than any of these fourteen other states:

The data you are referring to, showing 50% of the 593 foreign born residents of Minnesota diagnosed with TB arrived as refugees, represents years 2010 – 2014. The majority of those refugees actually developed TB disease after being in Minnesota at least five years, and many had been in the US at least 10 years, so these are not new arrivals to the US.

The presence of other medical conditions is the chief risk factor for the activation of TB disease in a person with latent infection (and remember, a third of the world has latent TB infection). These conditions include diabetes, cancers, immune suppressing medications, and renal disease. These are conditions common with the American diet and lifestyle, and new risk factors for these refugee populations. Tuberculosis can be treated with antibiotics.

Often times the reason that Minnesota reports TB and other infectious diseases at higher rates than other states is because we have a stellar system of surveillance and screening. From 2010 – 2014, in addition to their overseas screening, 99% of our primary refugee arrivals completed an additional health screening within 90-days of their arrival in the US. If you look at national surveillance data in 2014, states with a lower percentage of foreign-born cases arriving as refugees often have a higher percentage of unknown or missi

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read full article at source: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/10/13/two-hundred-ninety-six-refugees-diagnosed-active-tuberculosis-minnesota/