Seine-Saint-Denis no longer has the means. The department is sorely lacking in funds to fund screening centers for tuberculosis and sexually transmitted diseases. The president of the general council Stéphane Troussel expressed his deep concern at the planned disengagement of the State in the financing of screening.
Concretely, it is an envelope of 1.5 million euros which is threatened with disappearance, that is to say 15% of the health budget of the department. The abolition of this financial windfall would weigh on the finances of the general council, which would then be unable to maintain its seven screening centers, according to Stéphane Troussel. Also in the hot seat, the “itinerant screening operations”, which come to meet people in great precariousness or homes of migrant workers.
Priority screening in the 93
Tuberculosis is the deadliest infectious disease in the world after AIDS, according to the WHO.
In France, the epidemic has declined over the past ten years, except in Seine-Saint-Denis. The department of 93 is considered a priority in terms of tuberculosis prevention with higher infection rates than the rest of France and a shorter life expectancy than elsewhere. For the precarious, foreign, poorly housed or homeless population, this lack of funds “would pose a public health problem with a development of multiresistant forms“of the disease, adds Doctors of the World through the voice of its general delegate, Dr Jeanine Rochefort.
