Maria Briceno Professor Shelton Bio 1615 04/05/2014

Briceno 1

The Profile of Health Problems in African Immigrants Attending an Infectious Disease Unit in Melbourne, Australia
The introduction of this article talks about the experiment theyre testing, and they give you some information containing why and how theyre doing this. This article discusses the immigration of refugees, specifically Africans, to Melbourne Australia. Australia welcomes them with open arms but they are all demanded to perform a serious of medical tests to make sure they dont carry any infectious diseases with them. The scientists wanted to make sure that these refugees entering their country werent infected with serious illness or disease, and if they were, they would provide them with treatment as soon as possible. They did this to prevent infectious diseases from spreading in their country. There wasnt really a prediction of what was going to happen. Going into this experiment they knew they were going to find different results and thats why they performed different tests at a time.

They collected the patients background information like, age, sex, country of birth, date of birth, preferred language, and their arrival date to Australia. Not all the tests that were listed were performed on the patients. Some tests were only performed on those showing signs of infectious disease. A reflective examination was performed on all patients and they were all sent here for investigation and management of symptoms that could possibly be causing disease. They tested for

Briceno 2 infectious disorders, such as, chronic hepatitis B, chlamydia, HIV, gonorrhea, and different types of tuberculosis tests; they tested for stool parasites, and for non-infectious diseases. They sorted patients out by pairing them with people from their same country, age, and gender. After these tests, they then split the results into two variables, and they split the diseases into smaller possible factors.

The results were very effective and it showed specific data about where in Africa these diseases were coming from according to the information they recorded previously. A total of 375 patients were tested. They found hepatitis B in 19%, which was 32 out of the 167; HIV in 12%, which was 26 out of the 215 tested for HIV, parasites were found in 21% and 18%, had active tuberculosis. All were considered to have LTBI, which means the patient has symptoms of tuberculosis but isnt active with the disease. Since they split them groups determining where in Africa they were from, this gave the scientists proof of where the disease was more common. They were able to identify who had more disease, whether men or women, and where they were from. More men from the ages of 20-45, who were from Sudan and spoke English tested positive for most diseases. Most of the refugees were from Egypt or Kenya and 41% spent their time at a refugee camp before coming to Australia. This is the first public study from an adult tertiary hospital containing information regarding Australians, Africans, and infectious disease testing.

Briceno 3 Citations Gibney, Katherine B., Seema Mirshahi, Joseph Torrest, Caroline Marshall, and Karin Leder. "The Profile of Health Problems in African Immigrants Attending an Infectious Disease Unit in Melbourne, Australia." American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. N.p., 19 Jan. 2009. Web. 29 Mar. 2014. <http://www.ajtmh.org>.

"Fact Sheet 60 Australia's Refugee and Humanitarian Programme." Australian Government Department of Immigration and Border Protection. N.p., 2 Nov. 2013. Web. 29 Mar. 2014. <https://www.immi.gov.au/media/fact-sheets/60refugee.htm>.