Patients contacted in TB alert

Patients will be offered screening and antibiotics

Health managers at a prestigious hospital are alerting about 100 patients after a health care worker developed tuberculosis (TB).

Patients at Harefield Hospital in Middlesex were thought to have been exposed to the risk of infection in November and December this year.

The hospital is contacting all those who may have come into contact with the unnamed worker, who has since developed the highly-infectious disease.

Patients were being contacted by telephone and letter and will be offered "appropriate follow-up" treatment, which can include screening and antibiotics.

Staff shortage

TB used to be regarded as a killer disease but is now treatable with drugs, although health groups have warned of a massive rise in the number of cases recorded in Britain.

Public Health Laboratory Service figures show the number of cases in England and Wales rose from 5,085 in 1987 to 6,797 in 2000.

The British Thoracic Society - the UK's professional body of respiratory specialists - warned earlier this month that there was a "desperate shortage" of staff to monitor, treat and manage tuberculosis in hospitals.

Slow symptoms

A spokeswoman for the Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Trust said the health care worker was in contact with patients from mid-November to mid-December, and had since developed TB.

The disease, which usually affects the lungs, can go undetected for several months before the sufferer begins to develop symptoms.

The hospital was contacting all patients it believed to have been exposed, and has also set up an advice line for any other patients who believed they were at risk, on 0208 8671431.

The trust spokeswoman refused to reveal which department of the hospital the worker was from, but said the trust regretted any distress caused to patients.