To the Editor: The growing problem of tuberculosis in resource-rich countries has been recently highlighted,1 with immigration thought to be an important contributor. To assess a possible increase in incidence, we performed a retrospective case record review of all children who had tuberculin skin tests or who were diagnosed with tuberculosis at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead for 3 years from 2004 to 2006. This period included the establishment of a refugee clinic in May 2005, which routinely tests refugees by tuberculin skin testing. We compared our findings with published data from 1982 to 1991.2
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- 1 Department of Respiratory Medicine, The Children’s Hospital at Westmead, Sydney, NSW.
- 2 Department of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology, The Children’s Hospital at Westmead, Sydney, NSW.
- 3 National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance, The Children’s Hospital at Westmead, Sydney, NSW.
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