TB scare for students

Medical experts have visited the school

A group of GCSE students will have to undergo further tests to determine if they have tuberculosis after a 15-year-old classmate contracted the disease.

Year 11 pupils at Moat Community College in Highfields, Leicester, have already had skin tests in case the victim caught TB from another pupil or has infected others.

But Dr Philip Monk, a specialist in communicable diseases with the Health Protection Agency, said about 40 could need chest X-rays because they have had positive TB skin tests in the past which may have affected the results.

However he allayed concerns it would be a repeat of the Crownhills school outbreak in Leicester two years ago, in which more than 60 staff, parents and children contracted the disease.

He said: "We certainly don't have a Crownhills situation.

There may be something going on at the school

Dr Philip Monk

"We don't really see anybody who is convincingly unwell. But that doesn't mean that we haven't got a small group of children about whom we have some concerns."

Students at the school were tested after a 15-year-old girl was admitted to hospital with the disease on Thursday.

Social links

She was the fifth person in the city to contract the condition since last August.

Social links have been found between all sufferers although they are not believed to be from the same family.

Two of the cases can be traced to a social event and three to a mosque in the area, while one is said to be connected to both.

Dr Monk said epidemiologists and microbiologists in Birmingham and Leicester were still working to establish if one youngster who tested positive for TB last August and the last case were the same strain.

Different bugs

He added: "If they are, there may be something going on at the school.

"If they're different bugs, then we will wait and X-ray the children in about three-months' time."

Parents of all children at the school have been informed about the TB case and told of the symptoms.

Leicestershire sees about 250 cases of TB each year. Symptoms include weight loss, a persistent cough and fever.