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- TORONTO, Ontario (Reuters)
-- Canada, concerned with health risks to its citizens and new demands
on its already fragile Medicare system, plans to screen would-be immigrants
for HIV and Hepatitis B and deny them entry if they test positive, according
to Toronto's Sunday Star.
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- People applying to immigrate to Canada are currently
only tested for tuberculosis and syphilis. Canada, which has a population
of more than 30 million, receives about 250,000 immigrants annually.
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- The Sunday Star said Canada was on guard against HIV,
the AIDS-causing virus, and Hepatitis B, a sexually transmitted liver disease,
because most new immigrants were from high-risk regions, including Asia
and Africa.
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- Ron St. John, director of Health Canada's office of health
and security, said a computer model calculated that one in 1,000 immigrants
arrived annually with the HIV virus.
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- Each HIV patient cost the state-run national health system,
which is being strained by the country's aging population, between $97,500
(C$150,000) and $169,000 (C$260,000), he said.
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- St. John said overseas doctors, who screen people applying
to immigrate, have had the discretion of screening for HIV. Canada will
now join 50 countries worldwide, including the United States, that routinely
screen immigrants for HIV. The United States has screened immigrants for
HIV since 1987.
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- The newspaper said Canada also would improve the health
screening of refugees admitted into the country for humanitarian reasons.
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- A pilot project of refugees in Montreal will determine
whether refugees should be tested for tuberculosis within 60 days of arrival
or within the first five days.
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- A second study will decide whether point-of-entry testing
of refugees for malaria is worth doing.
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- The Sunday Star said doctors in Montreal recently found
that of a group of 223 Africans who arrived on a humanitarian flight from
refugee camps in Burundi, 13 showed up days later at emergency rooms, and
local doctors often failed to recognize the illness.
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