New York City Health Commissioner Ashwin Vasan announced that illegal immigration has been ushering a new wave of tuberculosis and polio to the city.
In a citywide letter to physicians and healthcare administrators last week, Vasan said that the more than 50,000 illegal immigrants that have come to New York City since last year caused a spike in contagious diseases like tuberculosis and polio.
“Many people who recently arrived in NYC have lived in or traveled through countries with high rates of TB,” he wrote, as reported by the New York Post.
Tuberculosis can be cured with antibiotics and generally takes six to nine months to fully recover. According to the Post, the city’s TB rate is now more than double the national rate with 6.1 cases per 100,000. “Close to nine out of 10 (88%) of these TB cases are people born outside the United States,” it noted. “Every neighborhood in the city has had at least one case.”