Fresh TB cases bring Crab Lane school total to 47

ANOTHER child has been diagnosed with full-blown TB at a Cork primary school and six more cases of latent infection have been detected, bringing to 47 the number of pupils and staff infected with the disease.

The latest figures come in the wake of a second round of screening of approximately 200 pupils and staff at Scoil Iósaf Naomha, Crab Lane, Ballintemple, in Cork city, where an outbreak of TB was identified on August 10.

Seven pupils have since been diagnosed with full-blown or active TB and 35 have latent, non-contagious TB infection. Five staff have a latent form of the disease.

The unusual decision to implement a second round screening came after public health officials became concerned at the “extraordinarily high rate of attack” of the outbreak. Chair of the outbreak control team Dr Margaret O’Sullivan described it as “an extremely unusual event in the scientific literature in terms of potential source exposure, lack of confirmation of a definitive infectious source and the degree of spread”.

The source of the infection has still not been identified since the first case was notified to public health on July 29, despite the two rounds of screening. Public health and respiratory specialists said it is possible the source may never be found.

Those in whom TB has been detected have been put on an extensive course of antibiotics and are, according to public health officials, not infectious.

During the second round screening, which began on September 27, parents were offered the opportunity to have their children vaccinated against the disease, putting them to the top of a queue of more than 4,000 children in the Health Service Executive South waiting for the BCG vaccine.

Unlike most of the rest of the country, the vaccine had not been routinely available to newborns in Cork city for a period of 36 years and was only reintroduced in October 2008 following an outbreak in two creches the previous year.