Correspondence
Rates of Infection Are Much Higher
;
In a third of homeless people diseases falling into the category “Certain infectious and parasitic diseases” (A00-B99) of the ICD-10-GM. The diagnoses were made clinically and/or on the basis of the medical history and by taking a conventional X-ray image. Several sexually transmitted diseases that are identified by molecular diagnosis of urinary tract pathogens or only by means of a blood serology specimen are likely to have remained undetected. High prevalence rates of past (10–80%) or active (1–5%) hepatitis B (4–36%) and/or HIV infection (0.3–21%) have been described in homeless people (2). Lastly, COVID-19 cases in this patient group are common (3). As these cases are categorized as “Diseases of uncertain etiology, assigned and unassigned codes” M(U07.-) they would therefore not appear in the authors’ statistics as infectious diseases according to the ICD-10-GM classification (4). Consequently, the actual infection rates in the population under study is likely to be many times higher. This also underlines the importance of preventive vaccination in this group of patients.
DOI: 10.3238/arztebl.m2022.0083
PD Dr. med. Antonios Katsounas
Ruhr-Universität Bochum,
Universitätsklinikum Knappschaftskrankenhaus Bochum, Germany
Medizinische Klinik, Sektion Infektiologie und
internistische Intensivmedizin
PD Dr. med. Enrico Schalk
Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg, Germany
Medizinische Fakultät, Klinik für Hämatologie und Onkologie
enrico.schalk@med.ovgu.de
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