Poor living and working conditions for miners of gold, diamonds and other precious metals have contributed significantly to tuberculosis (TB) epidemics across Africa, scientists said on Tuesday.
Researchers from Britain and the United States said their study suggested that crowded living and working conditions, dust in mines, and the spread of HIV mean Africa's mining industry may figure in up to 760,000 new cases of TB each year.
Men traveling from afar to work in mines, such as from Botswana to South Africa, are at the greatest risk of getting TB, the researchers wrote in a study published in the American Journal of Public Health.
But their wives, children and friends are also at high risk of catching the disease when miners travel back and forth to work, often many times a year.
"Improving living and healthcare conditions for miners may be necessary not only for the miners, but for controlling tuberculosis epidemics throughout sub-Saharan Africa," said Dr David Stuckler from the Department of Sociology at Oxford University, who led the study.
Tuberculosis killed 1.8 million people worldwide in 2008, or nearly 5,000 people a day.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65060120100601
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