[Dermatophytes and immigration].

An epidemiological study of dermatophytes was achieved during the years 1983-1984 in the Mycology Laboratory of Saint-Louis' Hospital. Immigrants represent an important part of the people who came to consult us: 28 per cent in 1983. The two most important immigrant peoples show different features: Black African people, who were mass contaminated by tinea agents (Trichophyton soudanense and Microsporum langeronii), were not much contaminated by epidermophytic agents (Trichophyton rubrum, Trichophyton interdigitale, Epidermophyton floccosum). Conversely, in people from the Maghreb, if tinea (Trichophyton violaceum) were not numerous, epidermophyties were found in the same proportion than in native people. The transmission of various dermatophytes from one population to another seems quite easy to detect for tinea agents: Trichophyton soudanense, Microsporum langeronii and Trichophyton violaceum can contaminate native people. Microsporum canis often contaminates the children from the Maghreb, and rarely Black African children. But the transmission of epidermophytes is much more difficult to study, due to a lack of documents in the African countries involved. The Scytalidium and Hendersonula pathology recently discovered in France is almost exclusively restricted to Black immigrants from the West Indies and Africa.