Agency calls for more TB checks at airports

The Health Protection Agency has said that smaller regional airports need to be more effective at screening for tuberculosis (TB).

The agency said it had cause for "considerable concern" about the TB X-ray screening programmes in place at airports and ports.

Its report found that just over a quarter (27 per cent) of 270,000 people entering the UK from high-risk areas in the last six months were screened for the disease.

The report said that major airports such as Heathrow and Gatwick had good facilities and measures in place, but smaller airports needed to do much more.

However, a spokesman for the Home Office told the BBC that most efforts were focused on screening for TB before boarding flights to the UK as the volume of passengers made it more difficult on arrival.

The report concludes that even if all passengers from high-risk regions were screened, only 150 of some 7,000 cases a year would actually be spotted.

Conservative home affairs spokesman, David Davis, said the findings were evidence of the government's "failure to provide adequate protection at our borders".

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