LENGTH: 476 words
HEADLINE: BRITAIN'S TB SHAME
BYLINE: BEEZY MARSH

BODY:
TUBERCULOSIS is so rife that rates in some parts of the country exceed those in Third World nations, it emerged yesterday.

Impoverished Newham in London is the TB capital of the West, according to figures released amid fears that not enough is being done to halt the spread of the potentially deadly lung infection.

Doctors warned of a 'public health disaster waiting to happen' while screening clinics struggle with staff shortages. Statistics from the World Health Organisation and the Public Health Laboratory Service (PHLS) showed rates of TB have reached Third World proportions in some areas of the UK, rising by almost 20 per cent in a decade.

More cases are seen per 100,000 people in Newham - where refugees make up about eight per cent of the population - than doctors find in many ex-Soviet bloc countries.

The rate in Newham stands at 100.6 per 100,000, compared with 94 per 100,000 in Uzbekistan and 82 per 100,000 in Azerbaijan.

Half the TB victims in Newham are asylum seekers from India, Bangladesh and sub-Saharan Africa, experts estimate.

Most arrive carrying the bug in its latent form, but develop symptoms in overcrowded housing conditions, it is claimed.

The London borough of Brent is home to a rate of 89 per 100,000, outstripping developing countries such as Turkmenistan, Belarus and Brazil.

Latest provisional figures from the PHLS for 2002 showed 7,337 cases of TB detected in the UK - 32 more than the previous year.

This means Britain continues to suffer 1970s levels of TB, with 63 per cent of sufferers born abroad.

The illness, passed in airborne droplets from coughs or sneezes, can be cured with antibiotics. But it causes about 400 deaths a year.

Paul Sommerfeld, director of TB Alert, said poverty, travel and migration could all play a part in the increasing number of cases.

He said: 'The latest figures show that TB is still with us and increasing. We are still at 1970s levels and the threat of TB remains very real.'

Doctors from the British Thoracic Society warned yesterday that a lack of specialist TB nurses in the UK's worst-hit areas could lead to the disease tightening its grip.

Leicester, Birmingham, Wolver-hampton, Blackburn, Preston, Bolton, Bradford, Kirklees in West Yorkshire and Sandwell in the West Midlands all have high levels - of 30 cases per 100,000 or more.

Professor Peter Ormerod found that in 43 districts with a high incidence of TB, nearly 90 per cent had too few staff to treat patients.

He said: 'TB is a global emergency and certainly a national public health disaster waiting to happen.'

A Department of Health spokesman said: 'The most important element of TB control is diagnosing and treating the disease.

'We are working to raise awareness amongst health professionals and high-risk groups to increase reporting of symptoms.'