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| Tuberculosis Can Spread From Jail to Community |
| By Reuters Health |
| Published: 11/12/2001 |
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The crowded conditions make jails--like other institutions--vulnerable to outbreaks of tuberculosis. Now a new report shows that if tuberculosis does occur in a prison, the bacteria can spread to the surrounding community. It happened after one outbreak in a large municipal jail between 1995 and 1997, according a presentation at the 39th Annual Meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America in San Francisco. Within a short time after the outbreak, the strain of tuberculosis found in the jail spread to the surrounding community, said presenter Dr. William Schaffner, of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee. 'The take-home message is that jails and prisons are places where we in public health must direct more attention to finding cases of tuberculosis. Following the population in correctional facilities becomes an opportunity to find cases, initiate treatment, and terminate transmission,'' Schaffner told Reuters Health. 'Tuberculosis is most prevalent in inner-city populations, the poor, intravenous drug users, people who are immunosuppressed, refugees and immigrants,'' said Schaffner. ''While those are the major characteristics of the populations where tuberculosis thrives, some of these are also characteristics of people who are incarcerated.'' In the study, Schaffner and colleagues did a DNA analysis of samples from all cases of tuberculosis that occurred between 1998 and 1999 in the county surrounding the jail. Of the 156 cases, 68 had been incarcerated at some point before their diagnosis. Further testing showed that 12 of 19 people, or 63%, who had never been to jail, had the jail-associated strain of tuberculosis--including a 2-year-old child. 'So there clearly was transmission of tuberculosis among inmates and guards in the jail,'' Schaffner pointed out. 'We have since followed up and demonstrated that this strain is no longer just associated with the jail,'' he continued. 'Among the people who now get tuberculosis with this strain, there is a group who have not had any jail association, either directly or among their immediate contacts.'' The study shows that correctional facilities 'present a unique opportunity to control tuberculosis and interrupt its spread,'' the researchers concluded. |
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