Letter to the editor: Is there a need for special treatment of refugees at hospital admission?

To the editor: Two recent publications by Reinheimer et al. and Heudorf et al. in Eurosurveillance, provided data on multidrug-resistant bacteria obtained from screening of different refugee populations and concluded that additional screening or surveillance for refugees at hospital admission in Germany should be undertaken [1,2]. The high number of people currently migrating to Europe from disaster areas has sparked a debate, whether or not refugees should be screened at hospital admission for colonisation with multidrug-resistant bacteria to limit spread of antibiotic resistance within Europe. The possible negative consequences of screening and lacking data make this a more complex issue than it may seem at first.