THE GOVERNMENT yesterday played down fears of a lung infection spread after pupils and teachers at a Nicosia gymnasium tested positive for the bacteria that causes tuberculosis a week after one of their classmates was diagnosed with TB.
Education Minister Andreas Demetriou said yesterday: “We see no particular problem” adding that the competent authorities in the education and health ministries were handling the matter.
Head of middle education, Zena Poulli, said the school would remain open while further tests were carried out on those pupils that tested positive for traces of TB mycobacteria.
“It doesn’t mean that this is from the specific case of the sick pupil as his close friends and class mates did not show positive result,” she said.
Referring to Phaneromeni school in Nicosia, she said: “This school has 126 pupils in total, many of whom are from eastern countries where there are higher rates of TB, which is likely to mean that some have been vaccinated.”
Poulli would not reveal how many pupils and teachers tested positive, saying that more tests were needed. Health Ministry infectious disease specialist Dr Chrystalla Hadjianastasiou has stressed that just because some tested positive for the presence of mycobacteria this did not mean they had become infected through contact with the 14-year-old boy, or that they would develop the infectious lung disease.
The authorities are now looking to identify those who are at risk of developing or transmitting the disease and administering prevention treatment where necessary so they do not develop TB in the future.
Lung specialist Tonia Adamidou was quoted saying yesterday that many people could test positive for the disease, including those who have received the vaccination, but this only meant that their organism recognised the bacteria and not that they would ever develop the disease.
“Let’s be clear on this, for someone to be infectious, they have to have active TB, they have to be sick.”
Adamidou explained that the initial test undertaken simply showed whether someone has come into contact with the TB mycobacteria.
“This doesn’t mean that person is sick. Ninety per cent of the time, they will remain free (of the disease) for life, in other words, they won’t get sick, but this test shows us that they came into contact with this germ, that this organism recognises it. It doesn’t mean they get sick, or can transmit it to others as long as don’t get sick.”
Adamidou further explained that children from Eastern Europe where TB rates are higher, were more likely to have come into contact with TB or been vaccinated for it, which would come up positive in a test. In Cyprus, children are not vaccinated because TB levels are so low.
However, preventive medication is needed where the person is below 35 and vulnerable to the disease over a period of nine months, she added.
