Consap police union
announced Thursday it is filing a class-action suit against the
interior ministry after 40 policemen working with recently
arrived immigrants tested positive for TB.
There are also three confirmed cases of TB infection, one
each in the cities of Bologna, Ferrara, and Terni, the union
said.
There is a difference between TB infection and TB disease.
Testing positive means the person has been exposed to TB
bacteria and must be treated.
If left untreated, the infection may develop into the
full-blown disease, usually in people with low immune systems.
When a person has active TB disease, the individual may be
contagious to others, particularly those with whom they spend
the most time.
"Semantic differences between positivity and infectiousness
certainly do not reassure the almost 50,000 fellow officers who
work with (recent) migrants," Consap said.
Opposition politician Beppe Grillo earlier this week
accused the government of "re-importing TB" into Italy and
suggested new arrivals - many of them from Africa and the Middle
East - should be quarantined "as our forefathers were on Ellis
Island" in New York.
He then sparked accusations of racism when he posted a
picture of Interior Minister Angelino Alfano in blackface in a
criticism of the government's migration policy.
Italy launched its Mare Nostrum rescue operation in October
2013 after the deaths of 400 migrants in two boat disasters in
the seas off southern Italy.
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