Screening for Tuberculosis is one of the most challenging, yet an imperative practice for enhancing community health. The article presents various recommendations for improving the screening procedure for the tuberculosis. Initially, the article highlights that a standard for determination of which migrant populations should be screened should be established across the nations. Furthermore, more nations should adopt the two-step approach in the screening process to back-up the one-step approach widely used. All screening programs also should be based at standardized interpretation of the results in order to limit the errors that occur due to a large number of interpreters. The specialists in the TB screening program should also be digitized to improve the transmission of the screening results from the site of screening which will increase efficiency. Lastly, the article notes that measures should be established to minimize tuberculosis among the new arrivals in a country (Alvarez et al. 2011).
In reference to this article, various ethical considerations apply in the screening process. Initially, no segregation should exist in the process of screening. This ensures that all the immigrants are fairly and equally screened, which helps in avoiding errors that distort the results in the screening process. The standard for interpretation should be consistent for all the immigrants to promote equality. Privacy of the screened immigrants should be maintained and the rules of disclosure obeyed to the maximum limits (Alvarez et al. 2011). The recommendations are justified as they help increase the level of efficiency in the screening process, which goes a long way in making the process legitimate and acceptable for all the people (Sanchez et al, 2013).
A range of epidemiological evidence supports the recommendations. When a similar screening was carried out in Kenya in 2007 for the refugees, the use of transmission technology helped to make the process more effective as better results were obtained from the thousands of refugees (Sanchez et al, 2013). The two-step approach also succeeded in Kenya as the refugees were screened through two steps. The first step occurring at the border while the second step in the screening process took place at the refugee camps including Daadab. In the Dominican Republic, the interpretation of the screening results takes place at a central place, the government laboratories that promoted the reliability of the screening results.
The screening program for tuberculosis is high-risk based. This means that it evaluates immigrants who pose the greatest risk to the citizens in a particular country. This influences the results in the screening process because the cases passed as unsafe are only the cases that the screening specialists think are risky to the people (Ndwiga et al, 2013). However, some of the people passed as safe may enter the country with tuberculosis, as they are not considered risky to the citizens of the country. It also influences my analysis as I base my findings on the fact that risk and not numbers are considered in the screening of the immigrants for tuberculosis. The data can be used in improving population health in the area of tuberculosis as the migrants can be screened with procedures that are more extensive and systems that are more reliable that will ensure the errors in the interpretation and other steps are eliminated.
Concisely, screening for tuberculosis among the immigrants is a tricky process as it involves the physical examination and keen interpretation of results of an assorted group. In reference to Alvarez et al. (2011) article, technology and expertise used in screening is important as it affects the quality of the interpretations.
References
Alvarez G. et al. (2011). A comparative examination of tuberculosis immigration medical screening programs from selected countries with high immigration and low tuberculosis incidence rates. BMC Infectious Diseases 11:3
Ndwiga, C., Birungi, H., Undie, C., Weyenga, H., & Sitienei, J. (2013). Feasibility and effect of integrating tuberculosis screening and detection in postnatal care services: an operations research study. BMC Health Services Research, 13(1), 1-6.
Sanchez, A., Massari, V., Gerhardt, G., Espinola, A., Siriwardana, M., Camacho, L. B., & Larouzé, B. (2013). X ray screening at entry and systematic screening for the control of tuberculosis in a highly endemic prison. BMC Public Health, 13(1), 1-13.
