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CAREGIVER AT MADISON VA HOSPITAL DIAGNOSED WITH
TUBERCULOSIS -- Has prompted officials to test
about 30
co-workers for the potentially fatal lung
disease and try to
contact up to 150 veterans who may have been
exposed.
X-Ray of lungs with tuberculosis.
For more on tuberculosis, use the VA Watchdog
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Story here...
http://www.madison.com/
wsj/mad/top/index.php?ntid=207698
Story below:
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Caregiver at UW and Veterans hospitals has TB
DAVID WAHLBERG
dwahlberg@madison.com
A woman who cares for patients at UW Hospital
and the Veterans Hospital in Madison has tuberculosis, which has
prompted officials to test about 30 of her co-workers for the
potentially fatal lung disease and try to contact up to 150 patients who
may have been exposed.
The woman, whose identity and job position hospital officials wouldn't
provide, is thought to have been contagious for only a few days or not
at all, said Dr. Dennis Maki, an infectious disease specialist at UW
Hospital.
Though TB can be spread through the air, it generally requires close,
prolonged contact, Maki said. It would take about six months for most
people who were exposed to develop active disease, he said.
Maki said it's too early to know if the woman has multi-drug resistant
TB, which is more of a public health threat. Tests to determine that
could take another few weeks.
"The people probably at greatest risk are the other health-care workers
she has worked closely with the last two months," Maki said.
Those people are getting skin tests this week, he said. Any of them who
test positive will be given antibiotics to prevent the development of
active disease.
For patients, dozens of whom will be sought out soon by their doctors
for skin tests, "I don't think there's any reason for them to be
concerned," Maki said.
The woman, whose routine annual skin test for TB was negative in
November, became ill about three weeks ago, he said.
She didn't have a cough or other respiratory symptoms typical of TB, he
said. Her main complaint was abdominal pain, for which she underwent
surgery last week, he said.
During the surgery, abnormal tissue samples raised suspicion of TB, Maki
said. After surgery, he said, the woman was put in an isolation room,
with negative air pressure to contain germs and rules requiring workers
to wear special masks. She was given antibiotics.
A few days later, lab results from the tissue samples were positive for
TB, Maki said. The woman then underwent the definitive test for TB, of
her sputum. It was positive.
The woman returned home Tuesday and is recovering well, Maki said. She
will be on antibiotics for several months.
Maki and other officials said they wouldn't identify her or her position
because of privacy laws.
Because the woman didn't have the typical symptoms of TB, notably a
cough that could easily spread the disease, she probably wasn't
contagious, Maki said.
"If she was contagious, it was probably only in the last days before she
was diagnosed," he said.
Skin test results on her co-workers should come back by next week. If
they are negative, it means she probably wasn't contagious to anyone,
Maki said.
Other co-workers who don't work with her as closely will be screened for
TB during this year's annual skin tests this fall, he said.
Letters will go out next week to the primary care doctors of up to 150
patients who may have been exposed, Maki said.
More than ten years ago, another worker at UW Hospital had active TB,
Maki said. Some co-workers, but no patients, then had positive skin
tests, he said. They were given antibiotics and didn't develop active
disease.
TB, once a leading killer in the United States, has become relatively
rare, though it is widespread in other countries and can be present in
immigrant populations, health officials say.
The woman has traveled recently, Maki said. He said he didn't know if
she left the country.
Last fall, Madison health officials obtained a court order and an arrest
warrant to try to force a man to be tested for TB. The man, Chor Yang,
who had previously tested positive, had refused to continue treatment
because he said it made him ill.
By February, Yang had moved to California and had agreed to be treated
there.
This May, an Atlanta attorney named Andrew Speaker gained international
attention when he flew to and from Europe, despite having TB.
Yang and Speaker had multi-drug resistant TB, meaning the bacterium
doesn't succumb to most antibiotics. Health officials are especially
concerned about trying to stop the spread of those strains.
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Larry Scott --
