Tuberculosis screening expanded following Nain outbreak

Health officials in Nain say screening efforts for tuberculosis are being expanded to prevent further spread of the disease, after dozens of cases have been reported.

Sylvia Doody, director of health services with the Nunatsiavut government, said they've been working hard to follow up active cases since the death of 14-year-old Gussie Bennett in March.

"To date we have a total of 25 cases, 19 cases of which are lab confirmed, and six clinical cases of TB as well," she told CBC Radio's Labrador Morning.

We're very confident that we have done a thorough review and we're now at a point where we can look at expanding our screening efforts.- Sylvia Doody

"This is an outbreak, something that we have been investigating since March and certainly has been a lot of work ongoing since then."

Doody said when active cases of TB are discovered, the priority is to treat the disease to prevent it from being spread. The next step is to find anyone else who may have come in contact with the disease, and she said about 600 people have been screened since March nearly half the population of Nain.

About 500 more people will likely be screened when testing is expanded, she said.

"We are now at a point where we're very confident that we have done a thorough review of that contact investigation and we're now at a point where we can look at expanding our screening efforts to broaden up to provide all residents of Nain with an opportunity to come in and be screened for tuberculosis," said Doody.

'Sleeping' infection can cause outbreaks

Proper screening is important, Doody said, because the TB infection can lie dormant in otherwise healthy people for many years. A high burden of latent infection in a community can lead to outbreaks, as people age and their immune systems become more vulnerable to the "sleeping" disease.

"TB is spread, as you know, through the air, so when someone coughs, if they have active disease in their lungs, they cough and the bugs go into the air, so someone can easily breath in those germs," Doody said.

"And then sometimes those germs, depending on the person's immune system, they may go on to develop active disease, or they may stay in their lungs and their body walls off the infection and they lie dormant or sleeping."

She said the Nunatsiavut government is working on a broad strategy to end TB in the region by 2030, although it may never be possible to fully eradicate the disease.

And while there is always risk of spreading the disease, Doody said there is no need for precaution when travelling to Nain.

With files from Labrador Morning

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