Your national healthcare system at work - Tuberculosis scare in Canada

[Guest guest]

Here is another little problem the Canadian government is bringing

forward after the fact. They are only about a month late on this.

Administrator

http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5g76MZDmAMzNBc7bWltrtxFS2

eSUw

Only 8 of 27 passengers on bus with TB-infected rider have come

forward

23 hours ago

TORONTO — There's no cause for concern because only eight of 27

passengers on a bus that carried a rider infected with tuberculosis

have come forward, Ontario health officials said Thursday.

An appeal was issued last week for 27 passengers of Greyhound bus

trip 0367 from Toronto to Detroit on Aug. 31 who disembarked in

Windsor, Ont., to get tested for the disease.

Health Ministry spokesman Mark Nesbitt said Thursday the eight people

are being assessed to determine whether they need a skin test for

tuberculosis.

" If they do need a skin test, they'll get one of those, and those

take two or three days to come back because it's a reaction issue, "

Nesbitt said.

" It's like an allergy test, it's an antibody test, basically a very

tiny little injection, and then they check two or three days later

for a reaction. "

Nesbitt said he isn't worried by the low number of passengers that

have come forward to be tested.

" Generally it's going to take three to eight weeks for a skin test to

be worthwhile doing, " he said. " It takes that long for any sort of

antibodies to build up to be able to detect this. "

Nesbitt said he had no information as to where the eight passengers

are from.

The ministry continues to appeal to the other 19 passengers to

contact their local health unit or call their hotline number at 1-866-

532-3161, Nesbitt added.

The Greyhound bus left Toronto at 12:30 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 31, with

33 passengers aboard. The bus stopped in London, Ont., at 2:35 p.m.

and nine more passengers got on. The bus arrived in Windsor at 5:05

p.m.

The infected person - who was only identified as a woman carrying a

Canadian passport and ranging in age from 20 to 45 - had previously

tested positive for tuberculosis in the United States and was refused

entry back into U.S. at the Detroit border.

It's unknown whether doctors warned her against travelling.

The woman doesn't have the more serious forms of multi-drug resistant

or extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis. She was put into

quarantine.

The remaining passengers who were still on the bus are being looked

after by public health officials in the U.S. and Ontario, but it's

still too early too know if they were infected.