The Health Protection Agency (HPA) has identified immigration from Asia and sub-Saharan Africa as the reason for the 30-year high in tuberculosis infections in Britain.

According to figures released by the HPA, there were 9,040 tuberculosis (TB) infections last year.

This is the highest recorded level since another great wave of immigration in the late 1970s, also from Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, which pushed the number of cases in 1979 up to 9,266 cases.

To make matters worse, the number of outbreaks of “super TB,” a variant which cannot be treated with a conventional course of antibiotics, has doubled over the past ten years.

The HPA figures show that the number of drug-resistant cases of TB rose from 206 in 2000 to 389 in 2009.

HPA officials specifically blamed the rise in incidence to immigration, warning that the “disease is mainly occurring among overseas immigrants, coming from Asian and African countries where it is far more common.”

Medical journals state that TB is classified as being either “latent” or “active.” Latent TB occurs when the bacteria are present in the body, but are inactive and presents no symptoms. Latent TB is also not contagious.

Active TB is contagious and is the condition that makes a person ill.

The World Health Organisation estimates that a third of the world’s population is infected with latent TB.

Furthermore, the disease is also prevalent among people with HIV/AIDS.

Each year the disease kills almost 2 million people in Africa and Asia, while the death rate in Britain has now risen to around 350 every year.

The majority of cases occur in London and other urban areas where immigrant populations are concentrated in Britain.

Figures show that London had 3,440 cases of TB last year, which is 38 per cent of the total number of infections.

Some 1,018 cases were recorded in the West Midlands and 816 cases in the North West.

Even more disturbing is the high correlation between TB and HIV/AIDS. In many parts of the world, TB is a leading cause of death in persons with HIV infection.

Infection with others requires prolonged close contact and as such the disease tends to be more prevalent in poor, overcrowded conditions. This was why the disease was common in Victorian Britain, when it was more widely known as consumption.

But, it seems, the Westminster parties care nothing for the lessons of history nor for the realities of the Third World.

After all, it is only the British people who have to bear the physical and financial burden of the reintroduction of these diseases, so why should the ruling elite care?