Worst Tuberculosis outbreak in 20 years kept secret

[rdean]

State rushes closure of its only TB hospital in Lantana

Had they seen the letter, decision makers would have learned that 3,000 people in the past two years may have had close contact with contagious people at Jacksonville’s homeless shelters, an outpatient mental health clinic and area jails. Yet only 253 people had been found and evaluated for TB infection, meaning Florida’s outbreak was, and is, far from contained.

The public was not to learn anything until early June, even though the same strain was appearing in other parts of the state, including Miami.

Worst TB outbreak in 20 years kept secret | www.palmbeachpost.com

Deadly Tuberculosis Outbreak In Florida Covered Up By GOP Governor Rick Scott

Of course, the cost to treat a TB patient early is typically $500, however if prolonged, drug resistant TB strains which do develop can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. And once those appear, the diseases contagious nature make it sure to spread rapidly, especially in areas effected by the layoffs for water treatment plants. So much for austerity.

And, as the Palm Beach Post reported, it appeared that the Governor had been actively hiding the CDC report from lawmakers just before they ordered the closing of the state’s sole TB treatment center. Despite the confirmed deaths by TB and thousands exposed to the disease, the Governor felt that saving a few hundred dollars per patient was worth the looming crisis in the state. Now it appears that containment of the disease is no longer an option, and with TB being incredibly contagious, called “Consumption” for those who recall the works of Charles Dickens, the danger to the state looms large.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

What is it these people don't understand? It's more important to give tax breaks to billionaires than worry about a few thousand "little people". Let 'em die!

 

[Warrior102]

Blame Bush, asswipe.

 

[Rat in the Hat]

State rushes closure of its only TB hospital in Lantana

Had they seen the letter, decision makers would have learned that 3,000 people in the past two years may have had close contact with contagious people at Jacksonville’s homeless shelters, an outpatient mental health clinic and area jails. Yet only 253 people had been found and evaluated for TB infection, meaning Florida’s outbreak was, and is, far from contained.

The public was not to learn anything until early June, even though the same strain was appearing in other parts of the state, including Miami.

Worst TB outbreak in 20 years kept secret | www.palmbeachpost.com

Deadly Tuberculosis Outbreak In Florida Covered Up By GOP Governor Rick Scott

Of course, the cost to treat a TB patient early is typically $500, however if prolonged, drug resistant TB strains which do develop can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. And once those appear, the diseases contagious nature make it sure to spread rapidly, especially in areas effected by the layoffs for water treatment plants. So much for austerity.

And, as the Palm Beach Post reported, it appeared that the Governor had been actively hiding the CDC report from lawmakers just before they ordered the closing of the state’s sole TB treatment center. Despite the confirmed deaths by TB and thousands exposed to the disease, the Governor felt that saving a few hundred dollars per patient was worth the looming crisis in the state. Now it appears that containment of the disease is no longer an option, and with TB being incredibly contagious, called “Consumption” for those who recall the works of Charles Dickens, the danger to the state looms large.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

What is it these people don't understand? It's more important to give tax breaks to billionaires than worry about a few thousand "little people". Let 'em die!

From your link...

That report had been penned on April 5, exactly nine days after Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed the bill that shrank the Department of Health and required the closure of the A.G. Holley State Hospital in Lantana, where tough tuberculosis cases have been treated for more than 60 years.

Exactly how was Gov. Scott supposed to know what was in the report before it was even written??

Be specific.

 

[rdean]

http://newsroom.doh.state.fl.us/wp-content/uploads/newsroom/2011/08/61812AGHcntrct.pdf

Don't believe me. Do a little research. The TB outbreak was reported in April. Check out the date on the order in the link.

How come right wingers never want to know the truth?

 

[waltky]

Alarming levels of DR-TB...

Study Reveals Alarming Levels of Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis
August 29, 2012 - Alarming levels of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis have been found around the world. A new study says the findings signal an urgent need for improved testing and the development of better drugs to fight the deadly lung infection.

Researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, tested samples from more than 1,200 TB patients from eight countries who were classified as having multi-drug resistant tuberculosis. The infection was resistant to one or both of the older, first-line drugs, rifampacin and isoniazid. But investigators found 6.7 percent of the patients were infected with extensively drug resistant TB, known as XDR. The XDR-TB patients did not respond to a regimen that included the first-line treatments, and quinolone drugs and newer injectable drugs.

Investigator Tracy Dalton, of the CDC’s Division of TB Elimination, led the study. “So, what this presents is a really worrying trend in increasing XDR in the world,” she said. Before the study, the World Health Organization estimated that just more than five percent of all resistant cases of TB were XDR. Dalton says resistance to at least one newer anti-TB drug was detected in 44 percent of the patients, ranging from 33 percent in Thailand to more than 60 percent in Latvia. Other countries in the study were Estonia, the Philippines, Russia, South Africa, South Korea and Peru.

Dalton says the increased availability of newer tuberculosis drugs increases the likelihood they are not taken as prescribed, which causes the TB bacterium to become less sensitive to the stronger drugs. Dalton says the biggest predictor of whether someone in the study was infected with XDR TB was whether they had previously been treated for tuberculosis. “What we found in many of these sites is that there was resistance to all of these second-line drugs. And we need more drugs to be available, and that is a high priority in TB control right now,” Dalton said.

Dalton says it is critical to take immediate steps to contain the spread of extensively drug resistant tuberculosis, including building more and better lab facilities to test for TB. “There is a lot going on in molecular testing of drug resistance, which would be a rapid diagnosis of these patients,” Dalton said. Since Dalton’s study, the WHO has revised its estimate of the number of global XDR-TB cases upward, to 10 percent of all patients diagnosed with drug-resistant tuberculosis. A study on extensively drug -resistant tuberculosis by Tracy Dalton and colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control is published in the journal The Lancet.

Source

See also:

Gene-Swapping Soil Bacteria Harbor Antibiotic Resistance
August 30, 2012: As drug-resistant infections become an increasingly serious threat worldwide, new research show the problem may be spreading right under our feet.

A new study in the journal Science shows that disease-causing germs and harmless bacteria in the soil are exchanging genes that make them resistant to antibiotics — a finding that may have implications for the widespread use of antibiotics in livestock. Antibiotic resistance among pathogenic bacteria — the kind that make people sick — is one of the most serious problems in medicine today. “It’s scary the number of pathogens now for which there are either very few or no drugs available to treat them,” says Gautam Dantas, study co-author and Washington University immunologist.

Swapping genes

The bacteria that cause tuberculosis, skin infections, food poisoning and other diseases become resistant to antibiotics either through mutations in their genetic material or by swapping genes with other bacteria. According to Dontas, even completely different species can swap gene-carrying DNA. “Bacteria as different as, say, you and I are to a plant, are still able to exchange DNA,” he says.

Identical genes

While researchers have long known that dirt is teeming with both harmless and deadly bacteria ready to exchange genes, they didn't know for sure what was happening. But after analyzing 11 different soil samples, Dontas and his colleagues found about 100 different antibiotic resistance genes. “Out of those 100 or so genes, seven of them had exactly the same DNA sequence as antibiotic-resistance genes that have been found in a whole bunch of pretty deadly pathogens from around the world," says Dontas, explaining that they cannot yet tell whether the genes came from the pathogens first and jumped to the soil bacteria or vice versa. “But I think either scenario is plausible and either scenario, as far as we’re concerned, is scary,” he adds.

Food animals

Dontas says doctors know that over-using antibiotics for patients is helping to increase antibiotic resistance. “What this work says is that we need to now also consider what happens when we dump antibiotics into food animals,” he says. On many farms worldwide, antibiotics are routinely given to cows, pigs and chickens to prevent disease and help them grow. According to some figures, more antibiotics are used for healthy animals than for sick people, and the drugs often end up in the soil through the animals’ manure. Dontas says the new study shows soil has the potential to spawn or harbor resistance that can jump to human pathogens. “This is not a distinct habitat," he says. "These transfers can occur, so practices in one environment are going to impact the other environment.”

Limited risk

The Animal Health Institute, which represents livestock drug makers, says antibiotics break down quickly in manure and in soil, and that regulators consider that risk before they approve the drugs. The industry group also notes that antibiotic resistance occurs naturally, so assessing whether its use in livestock has any additional impact would require further study. While drug makers support regulatory efforts to eliminate the role of antibiotics in the growth of healthy animals, industry-wide eradication of antibiotics, they say, would have worse implications for public health, as it would only increase the number of sick animals in the food supply.

Source

 

[whitehall]

What can you do with a schizophrenic homeless man who tests positive for T.B.? What is society's duty when it comes to mentally impaired drug addicted substance abusers who test positive for a contagious deadly disease? I'm serious. What do we do? Does society have the right or the power to confine people against their will who test positive for a dangerous disease? Apparently not.

 

[waltky]

Granny says take yer vitamin D pills...

Sunshine vitamin 'may help treat tuberculosis'
3 September 2012 - The body makes vitamin D when it is out in the sun

Vitamin D could help the body fight infections of deadly tuberculosis, according to doctors in London. Nearly 1.5 million people are killed by the infection every year and there are concerns some cases are becoming untreatable. A study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed patients recovered more quickly when given both the vitamin and antibiotics. More tests would be needed before it could be given to patients routinely. The idea of using vitamin D to treat tuberculosis (TB) harks back to some of the earliest treatments for the lung infection. Before antibiotics were discovered, TB patients were prescribed "forced sunbathing", known as heliotherapy, which increased vitamin D production. However, the treatment disappeared when antibiotics proved successful at treating the disease.

Heal faster

This study on 95 patients, conducted at hospitals across London, combined antibiotics with vitamin D pills. It showed that recovery was almost two weeks faster when vitamin D was added. Patients who stuck to the regimen cleared the infection in 23 days on average, while it took patients 36 days if they were given antibiotics and a dummy sugar pill. Dr Adrian Martineau, from Queen Mary University of London, told the BBC: "This isn't going to replace antibiotics, but it may be a useful extra weapon. "It looks promising, but we need slightly stronger evidence." Trials in more patients, as well as studies looking at the best dose and if different forms of vitamin D are better, will be needed before the vitamin could be used by doctors. Vitamin D appears to work by calming inflammation during the infection. An inflammatory response is an important part of the body's response to infection.

During TB infection, it breaks down some of the scaffolding in the lungs letting more infection-fighting white blood cells in. However, this also creates tiny cavities in the lungs in which TB bacteria can camp out. "If we can help these cavities to heal more quickly, then patients should be infectious for a shorter period of time, and they may also suffer less lung damage," Dr Martineau said. The doctors suggested this might also help in other lung diseases such as pneumonia and sepsis. Prof Peter Davies, the secretary of the charity TB Alert, said the findings were "excellent" and vitamin D could play "an important role in treating tuberculosis". However, he thought there could be an even greater role in preventing the disease.

One in three people have low levels of tuberculosis bacteria in their lungs and have no symptoms, known as latent tuberculosis. However, this would turn to full blown TB in about 10% of people. Prof Davies's idea is that giving vitamin D supplements, for example in milk, could prevent latent TB developing. "That would be a massive revolution if it was shown to work," he said. Prof Alison Grant, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: "Drug-resistant TB is an increasing concern world-wide and so new treatments to reduce the length of TB treatment would be very welcome. "Vitamin D supplements are often given to patients who are short of vitamin D and these low doses are generally very safe. "In this study the researchers were giving higher doses of vitamin D, and I think we would need larger studies to be confident that there were no negative effects of this higher dose."

BBC News - Sunshine vitamin 'may help treat tuberculosis'

 

[Luissa]

I get tested every year, I am good so far.

 

[whitehall]

"Never let a crisis go to waste if you can make it work to your political advantage"....Rahm Emanuel.

 

[waltky]

WHO targets reducing tuberculosis (TB) deaths by 50 percent from the 1990 rate...

Program to Eradicate Tuberculosis On Track, WHO Says
October 17, 2012 - The World Health Organization says it is on track to reach its goal of reducing tuberculosis (TB) deaths by 50 percent from the 1990 rate, but global progress has been uneven.

In its annual assessment of TB, the WHO says new cases of the disease fell at a rate of more than two percent from 2010 to 2011. However, WHO TB department director Mario Raviglione says millions of people are still affected by the disease. "The global burden of TB remains enormous with an estimated, in the latest estimate of this report, 8.7 million new cases of which 13 percent, or over a million, are co-infected with HIV," Raviglione said.

At a Wednesday news conference, Raviglione said 40 percent of TB cases are in India and China while the African region has about 24 percent of the world's cases.

He said an estimated $8 billion a year will be needed to fight TB globally between 2013 and 2015 but there are "critical gaps" in funding. "We know that there is a gap of some $3 billion U.S. dollars already in 2013 out of the $8 billion needed," Raviglione said. Tuberculosis is caused by bacteria, which usually attack the lungs but can attack any part of the body. It is spread through the air from person to person.

Source

See also:

Tuberculosis Cases Down, Disease Still A Major Killer
October 18, 2012 - The World Health Organization reports that the number of people who caught tuberculosis (TB) fell last year, but it also said the number of deaths from TB remained the same and that TB is still a major killer.

The news from the World Health Organization is mixed: some 20 million people are alive today as a result of international efforts to control tuberculosis and care for those who have it. As a result, the death rate has dropped by 40 percent since 1990, but lately, it has remained stubbornly level. And progress has been painfully slow in reducing the overall number of TB cases, and in containing the spread of multi-drug resistant strains of the infection.

Dr. Mario Raviglione, with the WHO, discussed the agency's 2012 report at a Washington news conference. Dr. Raviglione said a shortage of money threatens to halt progress in containing the spread of TB, and he warns of serious consequences if this funding gap is not filled. "We will have to accept that millions more people will be dying of tuberculosis on an annual basis. We'll have to accept that the incidents of TB, instead of going towards elimination-- which is what we hope for --is going to stagnate and increase again, and we'll have to accept that multi-drug resistant TB will be created and further spread," he said.

Tuberculosis is a bacterial infection that primarily affects the lungs, although it can be found in other organs. It's highly contagious, and it's transmitted by breathing in droplets of air from the cough or sneeze of a TB-infected person. The WHO report shows more than half the number of TB cases are in Asia. Forty percent are in India and China. But the problem in sub-Saharan Africa is also severe because many of those who have TB also have HIV/AIDS. Eighty percent of those infected with both TB and HIV live in this region.

But doctors now have rapid TB tests that can show if a person has the infection in about an hour and a half. And new drugs to fight TB will soon be available. "We expect two, if not three, entirely new compounds that kill the TB bacillus very effectively to be available in the next few months," Dr. Raviglione stated. A vaccine to prevent TB is what scientists hope for. But until one can be developed, the World Heath Organization is calling for countries to commit to TB control programs and increased testing and for international donors to continue large-scale funding of these efforts.

Source

 

[waltky]

AIDS complicates TB treatment...

Tough TB Responds to Drug Treatment
October 22, 2012 - An antibiotic used to treat severe infections shows promise against a very resistant and deadly form of tuberculosis. XDR-TB is resistant to at least four of the drugs used most often against the disease.

Extensively drug resistant tuberculosis – or XDR-TB – is still considered rare, although cases have been reported in nearly 80 countries. Health officials believe the number of XDR-TB cases is underreported because there’s no specific test for it. It can be cured, but the odds against that happening are often quite high. It can kill quickly, especially if a person is co-infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

Dr. Ray Chen, a staff clinician at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says XDR-TB is the next step after MDR-TB, or multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, which is a lot more common. “That’s been a known problem for many years, primarily as a result of people who don’t take their drugs well. And then the tuberculosis bug slowly develops resistance to the drugs that are used,” he said.

MDR-TB is resistant to two of the top line drugs used for standard tuberculosis therapy. When the disease becomes resistant to two additional first-line drugs, it’s upgraded to XDR-TB. “It came to world attention in 2006 in a study in South Africa where a number of patients were found to have this extensive resistance to tuberculosis drugs, and they had a very high mortality rate. And so it became recognized as a major problem for tuberculosis,” he said.

More Tough TB Responds to Drug Treatment

 

[waltky]

DR-TB on the rise in Europe...

Drug-Resistant TB Threatens Europe
March 22, 2013 — In wealthy regions of the world like Western Europe, the infectious disease tuberculosis often has been seen as a health problem of the past - a deadly bacterial illness, but one that can be cured with antibiotic treatment. Now health experts say drug-resistant tuberculosis is on the rise: the numbers in Britain increased by 25 percent last year, and in Eastern Europe about one-third of all new TB cases are resistant to the key front-line drugs.

The Olallo Project in Central London was set up to help homeless people from Central and Eastern Europe get back on their feet by helping them find a place to live and get a job. The charity has evolved, though, to serve another pressing need - tackling tuberculosis among Britain’s migrant community.

A man (L) is x-rayed to detect tuberculosis during a medical examination, organized by the Belarusian Red Cross society, in Minsk, Jan. 29, 2013.

Tough medicine

Rimgaudas Planecinas from Lithuania has just finished an extended 18-month treatment to fight multi-drug-resistant TB, or MDR-TB. He found it difficult to describe the experience. Planecinas said the treatment made him unwell and affected his vision. He said he still suffers, even now that the treatment has ended. He said he has trouble with breathing and weakness. He still feels weak, he said. In 2011, more than 400 cases of drug-resistant TB were reported in Britain. Compared to other parts of the world, it may not sound like a lot, but it was a 26 percent rise from the previous year.

David Barratt, manager of the Olallo Project, said TB seems to become tougher to beat every year. “For the last few years the prevalence of multi-drug-resistance cases has been growing. We opened up the service just over a year ago now, initially expecting it to be for clients with normal TB looking for six months treatment," said Barratt. "And out of 14 referrals, 13 of them have had multi-drug-resistant TB.”

Person-to-person transmission

 

[varelse]

Most TB in the US comes from south of the border

 

[Quantum Windbag]

State rushes closure of its only TB hospital in Lantana

Had they seen the letter, decision makers would have learned that 3,000 people in the past two years may have had close contact with contagious people at Jacksonville’s homeless shelters, an outpatient mental health clinic and area jails. Yet only 253 people had been found and evaluated for TB infection, meaning Florida’s outbreak was, and is, far from contained.

The public was not to learn anything until early June, even though the same strain was appearing in other parts of the state, including Miami.

Worst TB outbreak in 20 years kept secret | www.palmbeachpost.com

Deadly Tuberculosis Outbreak In Florida Covered Up By GOP Governor Rick Scott

Of course, the cost to treat a TB patient early is typically $500, however if prolonged, drug resistant TB strains which do develop can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. And once those appear, the diseases contagious nature make it sure to spread rapidly, especially in areas effected by the layoffs for water treatment plants. So much for austerity.

And, as the Palm Beach Post reported, it appeared that the Governor had been actively hiding the CDC report from lawmakers just before they ordered the closing of the state’s sole TB treatment center. Despite the confirmed deaths by TB and thousands exposed to the disease, the Governor felt that saving a few hundred dollars per patient was worth the looming crisis in the state. Now it appears that containment of the disease is no longer an option, and with TB being incredibly contagious, called “Consumption” for those who recall the works of Charles Dickens, the danger to the state looms large.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

What is it these people don't understand? It's more important to give tax breaks to billionaires than worry about a few thousand "little people". Let 'em die!

Scott personally covered it up? Seriously? Why not blame him for infecting them in the first place, or did Bush do that?

 

[editec]

Drug resistant TB is certainly a problem looming in our future.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

State rushes closure of its only TB hospital in Lantana

Had they seen the letter, decision makers would have learned that 3,000 people in the past two years may have had close contact with contagious people at Jacksonville’s homeless shelters, an outpatient mental health clinic and area jails. Yet only 253 people had been found and evaluated for TB infection, meaning Florida’s outbreak was, and is, far from contained.

The public was not to learn anything until early June, even though the same strain was appearing in other parts of the state, including Miami.

Worst TB outbreak in 20 years kept secret | www.palmbeachpost.com

Deadly Tuberculosis Outbreak In Florida Covered Up By GOP Governor Rick Scott

Of course, the cost to treat a TB patient early is typically $500, however if prolonged, drug resistant TB strains which do develop can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. And once those appear, the diseases contagious nature make it sure to spread rapidly, especially in areas effected by the layoffs for water treatment plants. So much for austerity.

And, as the Palm Beach Post reported, it appeared that the Governor had been actively hiding the CDC report from lawmakers just before they ordered the closing of the state’s sole TB treatment center. Despite the confirmed deaths by TB and thousands exposed to the disease, the Governor felt that saving a few hundred dollars per patient was worth the looming crisis in the state. Now it appears that containment of the disease is no longer an option, and with TB being incredibly contagious, called “Consumption” for those who recall the works of Charles Dickens, the danger to the state looms large.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

What is it these people don't understand? It's more important to give tax breaks to billionaires than worry about a few thousand "little people". Let 'em die!

obamacare at your service.

 

[waltky]

Many first-choice antibiotics no longer work against some strains of the tuberculosis bacterium...

'Visionary' leadership needed on TB
23 March 2013 - Plans to tackle tuberculosis are failing and a new visionary approach is needed, according to an international group of doctors and scientists.

There is mounting concern that a rise in "virtually untreatable" tuberculosis poses a threat to countries around the world. Writing in the Lancet medical journal, the group said governments were "complacent" and "neglectful". It called for countries to do more to tackle the problem. The World Health Organization says nearly nine million people become sick and 1.4 million die from tuberculosis each year.

Resistance

Some countries are facing problems with drug resistance, with many first-choice antibiotics no longer working against some strains of the tuberculosis bacterium. It is particularly acute in some parts of eastern Europe and central Asia, where up to a third of cases can be multi-drug resistant, known as MDR-TB. The number of laboratory-confirmed cases of MDR-TB around the world has gone from 12,000 in 2005 to 62,000 in 2011. However, the real figure is thought to be closer to 300,000.

An even more stubborn version, resistant to more antibiotics, is called extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis and has been detected in 84 countries. "With ease of international travel, and increased rates of MDR tuberculosis in eastern Europe, central Asia, and elsewhere, the threat and range of the spread of untreatable tuberculosis is very real," the report said.

It argued that countries had spent decades being complacent in their response to the infection and that a "major conceptual change and visionary global leadership" were needed. "To prevent further cases of multi-drug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, a radical change in political and scientific thinking, and the implementation of specific measures worldwide, are needed. "The global economic crisis and reduced investments in health services threaten national tuberculosis programmes and the gains made in global tuberculosis control."

Tackling poverty

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21894488

 

[waltky]

Cats Spread TB To 4 People...

First cases alert: Cats spread TB to four people
Friday 28 March 2014 ~ Two people have developed tuberculosis (TB) after coming into contact with a domestic cat, in the first ever recorded cases of cat-to-human transmission, Public Health England (PHE) has said.

The cat was infected with the Mycobacterium bovis (M.bovis) bacteria, which causes bovine TB in cattle and other animals. Nine cases of M. bovis infection in domestic cats in Berkshire and Hampshire were investigated by the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency (AHVLA) and PHE last year. PHE said there have been no further cases of TB in cats reported in the two areas since March 2013, and said it believed the risk of transmission from cats to humans was “very low”. The organisation said it had offered TB screening to 39 people identified as having had contact with the nine infected cats, with 24 people accepting. Two were found to have active TB in their systems, and are responding to treatment. There were two additional cases of latent TB, meaning the people had been exposed to TB at some point but did not have an active infection.

Analysis of the samples of active TB from the humans and the infected cats by the AHVLA showed the M. bovis was “ indistinguishable”. This “indicates transmission of the bacterium from an infected cat”, PHE said. In the cases of latent TB infection, it was not possible to confirm if they were caused by M. bovis. According to PHE, transmission of the bacteria from infected animals to humans “can occur by inhaling or ingesting bacteria shed by the animal or through contamination of unprotected cuts in the skin while handling infected animals or their carcasses”.

Dr Dilys Morgan, head of gastrointestinal, emerging and zoonotic diseases department at PHE, said: “It's important to remember that this was a very unusual cluster of TB in domestic cats. M. bovis is still uncommon in cats - it mainly affects livestock animals. "These are the first documented cases of cat-to-human transmission and so, although PHE has assessed the risk of people catching this infection from infected cats as being very low, we are recommending that household and close contacts of cats with confirmed M. bovis infection should be assessed and receive public health advice." TB is a serious condition but can be cured with proper treatment, namely antibiotics taken for at least six months. The disease mainly affects the lungs but can affect any part of the body, including the bones and nervous system. Typical symptoms include having a persistent cough for more than three weeks that brings up phlegm (which may be bloody), weight loss and night sweats.

People can also experience a fever, tiredness and fatigue and a loss of appetite. Usually, TB only spreads after prolonged exposure to someone with the illness, such as living in the same house. In 2012, 8,751 cases of TB were reported in the UK. Mike Mandelbaum, chief executive of the charity TB Alert, said: “ In the UK we are a nation of cat lovers, so this may prove quite shocking for people who may now look at their pets in a different light. "Although I would stress that the risk of catching TB from a cat is likely to remain very low, this is a stark reminder that TB is still a problem in the UK today, with almost 9,000 people developing it last year. "As TB is airborne, the best way to control the spread of all forms of this curable illness, including those transmitted by animals, is for it to be diagnosed and treated as early as possible."

First cases alert: Cats spread TB to four people - Home News - UK - The Independent

 

[Darkwind]

We should do research into how many of the infected voted Republican. After all, Obamacare was enacted a few years ago.

 

[Luissa]

We should do research into how many of the infected voted Republican. After all, Obamacare was enacted a few years ago.

What a dumb comment. Lol


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