Adults and children to be tested in TB scare

CLOSE to 250 children and adults will be screened for TB in the coming days after it emerged two pre-schools had employed a worker infected with the disease.

The person involved worked at the two facilities prior to being diagnosed. These are the Panda Paws crèche in Eastgate Business Park, Little Island, Co Cork, and a second pre-school in the south side of Cork city which the Health Service Executive (HSE) has refused to identify.

Screening at Panda Paws gets underway this morning beginning with toddlers cared for in the room where the infected staff member worked. It will continue into next week.

Last night a spokesperson for the HSE said 140 people will be screened at the first crèche, including children, staff members and parents. Screening of 100 people will take place at the second crèche. The HSE said it is writing to parents with children at the second facility to inform them of the availability of screening. There was a five-day delay in briefing parents with children at Panda Paws because of the bank holiday weekend.

Yesterday, Aisling Logan, the mother of a six-year-old and a four-year-old at the Little Island pre-school, said her main concern was her children had not been given the BCG vaccination to immunise them against TB.

“My frustration is why is it the BCG is not automatically given to children in this part of the country? They get it everywhere else. I requested the vaccination for them last January and we are still waiting for an appointment.”

She said her concern was heightened by the fact her children would now have to wait six more weeks for the BCG because of screening.

“The preliminary results from screening are available after 72 hours, but the final results take six weeks. We have been told not to get the vaccination in the interim because it could affect the readings.”

Last night a spokesperson for the HSE described the absence of the BCG vaccination in HSE South as “an historical anomaly” inherited from the Department of Health. A HSE statement said its Primary, Community and Continuing Care directorate had set up a group in Cork “to progress the roll-out of routine BCG vaccinations for newborn babies, during 2007, in line with national HSE policy”.

Cork has also been without a TB diagnostic service since last March, when it was closed due to the poor condition of the building. The HSE said that building work on a new lab at Cork University Hospital is due to start shortly and the HSE is in the process of building a replacement facility.

In the meantime, the HSE is sending specimens to hospitals in Waterford, Galway and Dublin.

Panda Paws owner Mark Malone said it would make sense for the Government to make health screening of childcare workers compulsory: “As a father, I would love it. As the owner of a childcare facility, I would love it. My own child attends Panda Paws.”