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Sick Nurse Sparks TB Alarm at Hospital

Mar 16, 2007 | CARL CAMPANILE | New York Post

A staggering 700 patients - including 238 newborns and infants - may have been exposed to killer tuberculosis by an infected nurse at a Bronx hospital, officials said yesterday.

The bombshell TB scare at St. Barnabas Hospital was announced by the city Health Department after officials had difficulty contacting many of the patients at risk.

TB is a contagious infection that typically attacks the lungs, and can be fatal if untreated.

Symptoms include coughing, fatigue, loss of appetite and weight loss.

Newborns are particularly at high risk of infection.

So are adults with compromised immune systems, such as those infected with HIV/AIDS.

The disease can be treated and cured and, fortunately, the strain in question is not drug-resistant, health officials said.

The infected nurse checked herself into the St. Barnabas emergency room and was diagnosed with TB on Jan. 30.

"Because she was working at the hospital before she was diagnosed, she may have exposed others to TB," the Health Department said in a statement.

The employee is now cured, but has not returned to work, pending tests to confirm she's no longer a health threat to others, a spokesman said.

She worked in the neonatal intensive-care unit, the baby nursery, the maternity ward and psychiatric ward, officials said.

"Because their immune systems are not fully developed, newborns who are exposed to TB are at high risk of developing active TB," said Dr. Sonal Munsiff, the Heath Department's assistant commissioner of TB control.

"TB is preventable and curable, but it is critical that anyone who was seen in the maternity, NICU, baby nursery or psychiatric wards between Nov. 1, 2006, and January 24, 2007, find out if they were exposed and get screened for and begin treatment if necessary."

Patients or staff who don't know which wards they were in should contact the hospital at (718) 960-3624, or call the city's 311 hot line to find out if they were exposed and where to get treated.

Patients can get free screening either at St. Barnabas or at any of the city Health Department's TB chest centers.

Screening includes a Mantoux tuberculin skin test or a chest X-ray. Infants should be given both tests.

Even if newborns test negative for TB exposure, they should be placed on antibiotics as a precaution and then tested again at 6 months, Munsiff said.

Health and hospital officials decided to go public because more than half the patients potentially exposed were not reachable by mail or phone. To date, only 260 people - including 138 infants -have been tested.

"The response has not been as strong as we would have liked. Only a small number of people have come in for screening. That's why we decided to make a broad media announcement," said Health Department spokesman Andrew Tucker.

Thus far, three patients have tested positive for TB - but none is sick, said St. Barnabas spokesman Fred Winters.

The hospital stressed it took all the necessary steps. It notified the Health Department when the nurse had tested positive, St. Barnabas said in a statement.

TB infection has become rare in the city. In 2005, there were less than 1,000 cases, and 70 percent of those infected were foreign-born.

But worldwide, TB remains the most common infection - about one in three people have it.