In response to this the PHLS has drawn up a list of questions and answers. This has been emailed to CCDCs, regional epidemiologists, and public health laboratories, and will shortly be available on the PHLS website. A few cases have been reported to CDSC where human FMD has been considered. To date no human infections have been found. Twenty-five of the cases are students at the school, two are teachers, and four are family contacts.
All cases are on, or have, completed treatment.
Isolates from three of the cases have been confirmed as Mycobacterium tuberculosis and fully susceptible to standard anti-tuberculosis drugs. Definitive molecular typing results are not yet available on the isolates. Currently 60 children have been identified with strongly positive tuberculin skin test results and placed on chemoprophylaxis. Further cases of active disease, and further cases of infection without disease requiring chemoprophylaxis, may be identified as the screening is concluded. Screening, including chest x-ray examination, of all staff members at the school is also being carried out.