Blood tests for children as school is hit by TB

Hundreds of school children are at risk of catching TB after an outbreak of the disease in north London.

Every child at one secondary school will be screened for tuberculosis after six pupils were diagnosed with the infection. Health experts fear they picked up the illness while at South Camden Community College.

All teachers and pupils who attended the school over the past year will be asked to have a blood test.

Worried parents are now campaigning for all pupils to be given the BCG vaccination, which protects against TB but is no longer routinely given.

A spokeswoman for the Health Protection Agency said that three of the six pupils diagnosed with TB have an identical strain, which means they may have caught it at school.

Of the six, one pupil is still receiving treatment , while the other five had a type of the disease that was not infectious.

Grainne Nixon from the North East and Central London Health Protection Unit, said: "Infectious tuberculosis is a disease that typically requires close, prolonged and frequent contact with a person with TB disease in the lung before transmission occurs. The greatest risk of spread is therefore to people who live in the same household. The risk to contacts outside of the household, including those in a school setting, is usually low.

"However because three of the six students have an identical strain of TB and are in different year groups we have decided to screen everyone at the school as a precaution

"I would like to reassure parents that TB is not a disease that is easy to catch. It is however important that everyone is aware of the symptoms, which include a prolonged unexplained cough, fevers and weight loss."

One mother said: "I think they should have called a whole school meeting. I was extremely worried when I was told my son would not be given his BCG vaccination, but I was told the likelihood of him being exposed to TB was very low. I am going to campaign to bring back vaccinations for allschoolchildren.It seems crazy that they stopped them, and then we hear that six pupils have been diagnosed with TB."