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TB Outbreak in 2011

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I thought TB was a thing of the past. But it appears not. I've been speaking to someone today who's whole family has been tested for the disease after an elderly relative came out of hospital with it.

 

I don't know how she contracted the disease but doctors said she could have had it for years and its just emerged.

 

I don't know if this is a case of coming out of hospital more seriously ill than when you go in, but its worrying to say the least.

 

Has anyone else heard of instances of the disease in recent years?

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It was never completely eliminated; the problem now is that some strains - mostly in northern Africa, I believe, but some cases occasionally turn up in England - are becoming resistant to antibiotics.

 

It will never be the massive threat that it once was, because we can detect and eliminate it from cows, so you are never going to risk becoming infected just by drinking milk.

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I thought TB was a thing of the past. But it appears not. I've been speaking to someone today who's whole family has been tested for the disease after an elderly relative came out of hospital with it.

 

I don't know how she contracted the disease but doctors said she could have had it for years and its just emerged.

 

I don't know if this is a case of coming out of hospital more seriously ill than when you go in, but its worrying to say the least.

 

Has anyone else heard of instances of the disease in recent years?

PBS did an excellent series on Evolution a few years back, one episode did quite a bit on TB in this case its prevalence in Russia particularly in their prison system where multiple drug resistant strains are increasingly common.

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It's been on the increase over the last 30 years

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I was in contact today with someone who has been tested. I kept my distance though! Although, its not as bad as it was years ago with modern medicines but its still about which surprised me. I mentioned it to a friend earlier but got my T's mixed up and said I'd been talking to someone who had typhoid, which made her jump a little!!

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BCG vaccination for teenagers ceased a number of years ago which is worrying. I live in an area of London where the TB rate is significantly above the national average so all babies are offered the BCG vaccine. We're fairly used to it being a problem here so I guess it's surprising elsewhere in the country, but there are around 9-10,000 cases a year.

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Mid 90’s TB as we know it in the UK was thought to be well under control, however with the recent influx over the last decade or so we’ve seen a massive rise in Multi drug resistant TB, mainly coming from areas such as East Europeans, India, Pakistan, Africa.

 

Was talking to a colleague sometime back who works within the Sheffield PCT, was saying infectious diseases has seen a massive increase. You do have to be careful though, just because someone has TB doesn’t necessarily make them contagious, you are only contagious if you have respiratory TB, you have to be in close contact for long periods to breath in the air droplets. I have in the past cared for patients with Spinal TB, this is a serious problem for the patient only.

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...just because someone has TB doesn’t necessarily make them contagious, you are only contagious if you have respiratory TB, you have to be in close contact for long periods to breath in the air droplets

 

And there's the reason for the increase.

 

It's the increasing numbers of ill-mannered, scruffy people who think it socially acceptable to cough up their lungs and spit it out onto the streets for the rest of us to admire.

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BCG vaccination for teenagers ceased a number of years ago which is worrying. I live in an area of London where the TB rate is significantly above the national average so all babies are offered the BCG vaccine. We're fairly used to it being a problem here so I guess it's surprising elsewhere in the country, but there are around 9-10,000 cases a year.

 

Areas in which have high concentrations of immigrants tend to have a lot of drug resistant TB, many people in these areas tend to be asymptomatic, its more of a disease that is contained within the body, not respiratory TB. If a person has respiratory TB it takes a while to become symptomatic, when they do they tend to appear sweaty (fever), lethargic or withdrawn, shortness of breath & repeated coughing episodes. It’s transmitted through tiny sputum particles which others in close contact breathe in.

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Ah the wonders of a multicultural society. Smallpox will probably come back next. And then the bubonic plague. How 'vibrant' it will be!

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Areas in which have high concentrations of immigrants tend to have a lot of drug resistant TB, many people in these areas tend to be asymptomatic, its more of a disease that is contained within the body, not respiratory TB. If a person has respiratory TB it takes a while to become symptomatic, when they do they tend to appear sweaty (fever), lethargic or withdrawn, shortness of breath & repeated coughing episodes. It’s transmitted through tiny sputum particles which others in close contact breathe in.

 

It's true that the majority of people with TB have inactive or 'latent' TB, but for the vast majority of those who progress to active TB, it presents as the pulmonary (respiratory) form.

 

You also don't need to be in close contact for a long period of time to catch it. True, close or prolonged contact to someone with active pulmonary TB will put someone at very high risk, but even without these aggravating factors the active form of disease is extremely contagious.

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Ah the wonders of a multicultural society. Smallpox will probably come back next. And then the bubonic plague. How 'vibrant' it will be!

 

What about the British holidaymakers who come back fetching diseases with them? :roll:

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