Cork, Ireland: TB outbreak at a primary school rises to 37

[Shiloh]

Source: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0821/1224277318912.html

The Irish Times - Saturday, August 21, 2010
TB screening launched in school as three pupils test positive
BARRY ROCHE Southern Correspondent

THE HEALTH Service Executive has launched a TB screening programme for all pupils and staff at a Cork primary school after public health specialists were notified that three pupils at the school had tested positive for the disease over the past fortnight.

HSE South confirmed in a statement yesterday to The Irish Times that the three children who were diagnosed with the disease have started anti-tuberculous treatment and are under specialist paediatric care...

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Source: http://www.examiner.ie/home/over-200-pupils-to-be-tested-after-tb-outbreak-128535.html

Over 200 pupils to be tested after TB outbreak

By Catherine Shanahan

Saturday, August 21, 2010

MORE than 200 primary school children are to be screened for TB at a Cork school just days before the start of a new term...

...So far this year, 53 cases of TB have been notified in the Cork/Kerry region, of which 48 occurred in Cork. Historically, the TB incidence rate in the Cork/Kerry region has been higher than the national incidence rate and this has in the past been blamed on the absence of routine vaccination of newborns, which was withdrawn in 1972 while remaining elsewhere in the country.

After a 36-year absence, it was re-introduced in 2008 following a TB outbreak in two Cork creches the previous year during which 21 people, affecting 18 children and three adults. The BCG vaccine is now available five days a week at Cork University Maternity Hospital (CUMH).

A spokesperson for the HSE said there is a 95% uptake and no waiting list. Provisional figures for last year show 85 cases were notified in Cork/Kerry...

Read more: http://www.examiner.ie/home/over-200-pupils-to-be-tested-after-tb-outbreak-128535.html#ixzz0xCfyjwLM

 

[tetano]

Re: Cork, Ireland: TB outbreak at a primary school

Re: Cork, Ireland: TB outbreak at a primary school

Health chiefs will begin screening more than 200 children for tuberculosis today after an outbreak in a primary school.

Three youngsters in the Cork city area who already tested positive for the infection have started treatment.

The HSE South said an investigation in to the cluster of cases was progressing in line with national TB contact tracing guidelines.

Some 220 pupils and staff from Ballintemple National School and the families of the three children will be offered screening in the chest clinic of St Finbarr's Hospital, Cork.

.



http://www.herald.ie/world-news/three-treated-for-tuberculosis-2308273.html

 

[Gert van der Hoek]

Re: Cork, Ireland: TB outbreak at a primary school

Re: Cork, Ireland: TB outbreak at a primary school

48 TB notifications in Cork

August 24, 2010

A total of 48 cases of tuberculosis were notified in Cork this year up to August 7, with five cases in Kerry, the HSE has confirmed.

A total of 85 people contracted TB in the Cork and Kerry region, which corresponds to a rate of 13.7 per 100,000 of population.

The HSE South?s Department of Public Health has been notified of three cases of tuberculosis in children who attend the same primary school in Cork City. The children have started anti-TB treatment and are under specialist paediatric care.

Approximately 220 children attend the school and screening has been organised for all of the school?s pupils and staff. The screening involves clinic attendances with questionnaire completion, administration of a Mantoux skin test and a chest x-ray if required. For some individuals, a blood test may also be indicated. The TB vaccine will be considered once screening is complete.

full article


Thousands face wait for TB vaccine after outbreak at school

Tuesday August 24 2010

THOUSANDS of children and adults across the country are on waiting lists for the vaccine to protect against tuberculosis (TB), it was revealed yesterday.

In Co Cork, where three primary school children have contracted the disease, there is a backlog of 4,400 waiting for the BCG vaccine.

full article

thanks to http://twitter.com/floszcrxl

 

[Gert van der Hoek]

Re: Cork, Ireland: TB outbreak at a primary school rises to 25

Re: Cork, Ireland: TB outbreak at a primary school rises to 25

Cork TB outbreak rises to 25 cases at school

By Catherine Shanahan

Wednesday, September 01, 2010

THE number of primary school children infected with tuberculosis at a Cork school has risen to 25 since screening began over a week ago.

The figure includes five children with full-blown TB and 20 with a latent form of the disease. In addition, approximately 100 children at Ballintemple National School have yet to be screened, so the final figure with TB infection could be substantially higher.

To date, over half of the 220 children attending the school at Crab Lane have been screened, as well as all school staff.

While three staff members were referred for consultant respiratory physician review as a precaution, no case of active TB has been detected in any staff member.

In a letter from the Health Service Executive?s (HSE) department of public health to parents, seen by the Irish Examiner, parents are advised that:

* No definitive source of infection has been confirmed.

* The strain of TB present in the children has not been identified.

* The confirmed child cases of active TB have been detected in two children in the current second class and three children in the current fourth class.


Read more: http://www.irishexaminer.com/world/kfcwsnojaucw/rss2/#ixzz0yG82v6o5

 

[Shiloh]

Re: Cork, Ireland: TB outbreak at a primary school rises to 25

Re: Cork, Ireland: TB outbreak at a primary school rises to 25

Source: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0902/1224278051205.html

The Irish Times - Thursday, September 2, 2010
No source of TB outbreak at Cork school yet found

BARRY ROCHE, Southern Correspondent

THE SCREENING of pupils at a Cork primary school for TB is expected to be completed by the end of the week but, to date, no source of the outbreak of the disease has been identified...

 

[Ronan Kelly]

Re: Cork, Ireland: TB outbreak at a primary school rises to 25

Re: Cork, Ireland: TB outbreak at a primary school rises to 25

Ireland could lose its edge on TB

By Angela Long

The outbreak of tuberculosis (TB) in Cork city has focused attention on the former bogeyman of Irish health, as well as medical practice in the county.

The vaccine BCG has not been administered routinely to babies in Cork, as is the case elsewhere in the country. TB laboratories in the county were closed earlier this year.

The TB outbreak happened in two cr?ches where an infected adult had been working, and caused 16 confirmed cases of the disease at time of writing.

Most of these * 14 - are children, and all are receiving medication, with no fears for long term health.

But TB treatment in Ireland has been in limbo since the closing of Peamount Hospital in 2004, says respiratory physician Prof Luke Clancy.

Prof Clancy was medical director of the hospital, which was the headquarters for TB in Ireland for many years. He says treatment of TB in Ireland has been, and continues to be, very good, but that the Irish standard of excellence is being undermined.

"Our mortality rate is down to 2%, which is very good by international standards. In the UK it is about 10%. But we cannot afford to sit back now."


Professor Luke Clancy

Today there are about 400 cases diagnosed a year, down from 1,000 in the 1980s, and the plague years of the 1940s and 50s, when thousands suffered and died from the disease.

Fictionalised accounts such as in Mary Morrissy?s novel Mother of Pearl paint a poignant picture of the desperation of patients in sanatoriums all over the country.

HSE Southern Region has announced that the universal BCG programme will now be restored in Cork after a break of 35 years.

Dr Clancy says BCG is an important part of an anti-TB strategy, but just one component. "It is only a partial answer," he says. "TB needs a plan, it needs a panoply of things, vaccination, screening, many components in a package."

However not all specialists in the field are convinced of the value of BCG. Dr Charles Bredin, a respiratory consultant, told irishhealth.com he believed BCG should be discontinued as a universal vaccine.

"It is only suitable for targeted populations, such as health care workers, and some deprived populations." He said the vaccine had been discontinued in Northern Ireland some years ago because of doubts as to its benefit. This was why the decision was taken to stop its supply in Cork in 1972, by, he said, an 'enlightened' medical director.

Dr Bredin, who practises at Cork University Hospital, has been warning of the TB threat for some years. In a 2003 article he wrote of 'hidden reservoirs' of TB in deprived inner city areas, including Dublin and Cork.

He wrote of a likely peak in people over 60, who were young children when the mid-century epidemic was in full force. Such people, he said, could fit into a 'classic pattern of reactivation or secondary TB'.


One of the features of the Mantoux skin test, done to check for TB, is that it will give a positive result if the subject has had TB in the past, as well as those currently infected. This is one of the problems with BCG, Dr Bredin says. "A group of children who had the BCG as neo-natals will give a positive reading when they are six, and you don't know if they have TB or this is from the vaccine."

DNA fingerprinting would be a more rigorous and superior way to monitor TB, Dr Bredin says, but it is expensive.

Luke Clancy says the complexity of TB is one of its most worrying aspects. ?It is an infection, there can be relapses, it has many forms, such as pulmonary TB and TB meningitis.?

"Young children are very susceptible and the disease can have serious effects, but children don?t spread it. That?s how they knew there must have been an adult with TB in the Cork cr?ches."

The airborne bacteria can be spread easily, by anyone coughing, spitting, yawning or even singing, he says.

Some fears have been expressed that Ireland is at more risk from TB now that there is significant emigration from eastern Europe and Russia, where some vaccine-resistant forms of the disease have been found.

Prof Clancy says it is not racist to say that new arrivals could be bringing TB. "It is a fact. Countries such Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia all have a high incidence of multi-drug resistance. People have to be screened when they arrive here."
.....
http://www.irishhealth.com/article.html?id=11418

 

[Gert van der Hoek]

Re: Cork, Ireland: TB outbreak at a primary school rises to 37

09/09/2010 -

The number of cases of TB at a Cork school has risen to 37.

The HSE says one further active case of TB has been detected in the past week and 11 children have a latent form of the disease.

Latent TB is not infectious but if untreated, can develop into active TB.

Meanwhile, a UCC Professor has raised the issue of compensation for those affected by the disease where the HSE has not offered a routine vaccination.

Read more: http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/rise-in-cork-tb-cases-472796.html#ixzz0z113G8FF

 

[Shiloh]

Re: Cork, Ireland: TB outbreak at a primary school rises to 37

Source: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0916/1224278994545.html

The Irish Times - Thursday, September 16, 2010

Cork children to be retested for TB
BARRY ROCHE Southern Correspondent

PUBLIC HEALTH specialists with the Health Service Executive (HSE) have decided to rescreen children for tuberculosis at a Cork primary school after an increase in the number of pupils who were found with a latent form of the disease.

The move follows the discovery of an extra 11 cases of the latent form of TB among pupils at Ballintemple National School at Crab Lane, bringing the total number of pupils at the school who have tested positive for the latent form of the disease to 31.

In addition, three members of staff have also tested positive, while the number of cases of active or full-blown pulmonary disease among pupils at the school has risen from five to six.

On Tuesday, the HSE South consultant in public health, Dr Margaret O’Sullivan, wrote to all parents of the 220 or so pupils attending the school to advise them of the latest findings, which came to light in a first round of screening carried out by HSE doctors.

“This outbreak has revealed an extraordinarily high attack rate in terms of the numbers of active TB cases and latent TB infection in the school,” Dr O’Sullivan wrote in an update.

“It is an extremely unusual event in the scientific literature in terms of potential source exposure, lack of confirmation of definitive infectious sources and the degree of spread which has been recorded,” she added in the letter.

Dr O’Sullivan said that as a result of the failure to definitively identify the source and the rate of spread of the disease, it had been decided to carry out a second screening to rule out the possibility of any late conversions of those who tested negative in the first screening...

Source: http://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/extraordinarily-high-attack-rate-in-tb-outbreak-130951.html

Thursday, September 16, 2010 Previous editions

‘Extraordinarily high’ attack rate in TB outbreak
By Catherine Shanahan
Thursday, September 16, 2010

A TB outbreak at a Cork primary school where 40 people have been infected has exhibited "an extraordinarily high rate of attack" and confounded public health officials who have been unable to identify the source...


Read more: http://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/...rate-in-tb-outbreak-130951.html#ixzz0zhDN8l8T

 

[Gert van der Hoek]

Re: Cork, Ireland: TB outbreak at a primary school rises to 37

Expert warns ?hidden reservoirs? of TB may lie behind Cork outbreak

By Catherine Shanahan

Monday, September 27, 2010

WITH pupils of a Cork primary school set to undergo repeat screening for TB this week, a consultant in respiratory medicine has warned "hidden reservoirs" of the disease may be behind the latest outbreak.

Dr Cathal Bredin, a consultant respiratory physician at Cork University Hospital (CUH) said he believed these "hidden reservoirs" of TB account for the type of sudden outbreak currently afflicting Scoil Iosaf Naomha, Crab Lane, Ballintemple, in the suburbs of Cork city, where six pupils have been diagnosed with full-blown TB and 31 with latent TB infection.

Three staff have also been diagnosed with latent TB infection, which is not contagious.

"I would say those reservoirs are still there. They would account for the kind of out-of-the-blue episode we see in Crab Lane where no one has been identified as the source," Dr Bredin said.

He said the "reservoirs" were a hangover from a time when TB was rampant in the country in the 1930s and 1940s; that people infected with TB in that period, who are now elderly, may be experiencing a reactivation of the disease, or secondary TB.

Dr Bredin believes more aggressive contact tracing is required to identify these reservoirs, as well as DNA fingerprinting.

Read more: http://www.irishexaminer.com/world/kfmhkfididcw/rss2/#ixzz10iQIAIbo