HIV-testing study of immigrants with pulmonary tuberculosis

The increasing prevalence of tuberculosis (TB) and human immunodeficiency, virus (HIV), particularly in Africa and Asia, led us to investigate the prevalence of HIV infection in immigrants with pulmonary TB at the time of arrival in the UK. We performed anonymous HIV testing of stored sera from 39/65 immigrants referred to our unit between January 1991 and December 1994, who had culture-positive pulmonary TB. None of the 39 patients tested was positive for either HIV-1 or HIV-2, and the characterisitics of the 26 patients for whom no serum was available were similar to those of the tested group. Despite the need to consider concomitant HIV infection in any patient with TB, particularly those from an area of HIV endemnicity, the present data do not suggest that recently arrived refugees, asylum seekers, immigrants or long-term visitors to the UK constitute a group in whom dual infection of HIV and Mycobacterium tuberculosis is common.