Students screened after TB scare

Students and staff at a north London college are being screened after six students were diagnosed with TB, the Health Protection Agency (HPA) said.

Three of the students from South Camden Community School were found to have an identical strain of the germ suggesting the source may be within the school.

Five pupils had a non-infectious type of the disease while the sixth underwent treatment, the HPA said.

The HPA said it was screening everyone at the school as a precaution.

Grainne Nixon, from the North East and Central London Health Protection Unit, said: "Infectious tuberculosis is a disease that typically requires close, prolonged and frequent contact with a person with TB disease in the lung before transmission occurs.

"The greatest risk of spread is therefore to people who live in the same household as the person with TB.

"However because three of the six students have an identical strain of TB and are in different year groups we have decided to screen everyone at the school as a precaution."