TB outbreak: Call for improved screening

RESPIRATORY healthcare professionals have called for improved TB screening after it emerged that public health officials are investigating an outbreak of the disease in a Cork school.

Today more than 220 pupils and staff attending Ballintemple National School, Crab Lane, in the suburbs of Cork city, will begin a screening process following diagnosis of the disease in three children who attend the school.

Last Friday the Health Service Executive (HSE) confirmed to the Irish Examiner that the first child case of TB had been notified to its public health department on July 29. A second child case was notified on August 10, at which point public health doctors identified an outbreak.