Three more cases of Tuberculosis (TB) have recently been confirmed at DCU.
Over 100 students and staff were tested as part of an investigation by the Health Service Executive following the diagnosis of a student earlier this year.
Those tested had been in close contact with the person originally diagnosed with the disease.
Three people at DCU were found to have cases of non-infectious TB and according to a HSE spokesperson, are being treated appropriately.
Concerns have been raised by parents over the lack of information available regarding the outbreak as screening has continued over a number of months. The HSE has ensured parents that the screening process has now finished.
A HSE spokesperson said that all those tested were provided with written and verbal information on the reason for testing by medical staff.
However, DCU has also been praised for the course of action they took with regard to the outbreak and control of the disease. Carina Canavan, a student diagnosed with TB last year, says she couldn’t have asked more of DCU.
“From the day we found out about the TB we were constantly reassured that everything would be fine and that we would be looked after. They took every measure to ensure that the TB would not spread”, she said.
The most common form of TB infects the lung, but there are also forms which attack the nervous system and the lymphatic system.
Symptoms of infectious TB include night sweats, fever, weight loss, and coughing blood. Latent TB, another form of the disease, does not present any symptoms.
TB is one of the oldest diseases known to man. Today, there are around 400 cases of TB diagnosed a year, down from 1,000 in the 1980s and 7,000 during the plague years of the 1940s and 1950s.
Finnian Curran
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
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