Open tuberculosis in Hilden 930 children to the test

After a case of overt tuberculosis in a pediatric practice, 930 children are invited for examination

30.08.2012

Around 1000 children from Hilden and the region will be tested in the coming days and weeks for the serious infectious disease tuberculosis. According to the health authorities, the affected children may have been infected in a pediatric practice. A receptionist of the practice had infected already in the last year. However, the tuberculosis infection became known only now because the affected person has not suffered from any signs of illness.

Health department invites parents and children to the investigation
The health department will write to numerous families over the next few days to test their children for tuberculosis. It could be that some children have been infected, a spokeswoman announced. In the pediatric practice Hilden in North Rhine-Westphalia, another patient case of overt tuberculosis (TB) had occurred. An open TBC is highly contagious and is transmitted by droplets. A practice employee had already been infected with the dangerous disease in the last quarter of 2011. However, the infection was not diagnosed until the end of July this year and reported by the authorities. Accordingly, it can not be ruled out that the employee has infected patients. Therefore, around 1000 children from Hilden and the surrounding villages will be tested for TBC in the next two weeks.

„The health department has already contacted and informed around 700 families with their approximately 980 children“, as the authorities say. The persons concerned are requested to have themselves tested free of charge in the health department. In addition, an information event will take place on the weekend so that questions about the dangerous lung disease can be answered by worried parents.

Possible infection period can be limited
The authorities can narrow down the period of possible infections because the doctor's office was taken over by a new pediatrician at the end of the year. Physicians have prepared an opinion for this and found that children could only be affected in the months of October to December 2011. This was a great advantage, as the spokeswoman for the district of Mettmann, Daniela Hitzemann, explained. An acute risk of infection definitely does not exist today.

Meanwhile, the infected employee is being treated in hospital. It is still unclear how and where the patient was infected. In her family or in her social environment, according to the authorities, there are no other cases of TB.

Currently no TBC cases reported in children
So far, those responsible have no concrete evidence that a child has actually been infected with the lung disease. „We wrote to the parents to reassure them“, emphasizes the health department. The „Possibility of infection is very low“, so the spokeswoman. However, an all-clear can not be given until the end of September, when all investigations have been completed.

Tuberculosis is a bacterial infectious disease. The bacteria most commonly affect the lungs. Transmission is in most cases via a droplet infection by already sick. This happens, for example, when the infected man coughs and thereby distributes germs in the environment. According to Hitzemann, however, the persons have to spend several hours in a room with the infected person in order to be affected as well.

Disease course very slow
If germs in the sputum of the patient can be detected by laboratory tests, physicians speak of one „open TBC“. In principle, the course of the disease is divided into different stages. In an intact immune defense, the germs without disease signs for years „slumber“. Tuberculosis develops „very slow as a slow motion“. Fatigue, malaise, fatigue and coughing may be but do not necessarily indicate a TBC. For this reason, the disease was only detected in the practice employees now. In March of this year, the Robert Koch Institute warned of an increased tuberculosis rate in children.

Since 2005, a novel test procedure can be used. The immune cells from the affected person's blood are stimulated with a mixture of antigens. In addition, further diagnostic options such as the skin test are available. Sufferers are usually treated with a mixture of several antibiotic drugs for a long time. (Sb)

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