Northland health officials are hopeful that no further cases of tuberculosis will be found in Kaitaia after three cases were discovered.
It was initially feared that an outbreak of the potentially deadly disease was possible after a man working at Kaitaia's Juken Nissho triboard mill was confirmed with TB last month.
This
led to 103 people who had come into contact with the man, including many of his workmates, to be tested for the disease. After the tests another 28 people showed positive signs of TB.
However, only two further cases of TB, both from people who were in the same household as the first man, have been diagnosed.
Northland Health medical officer of health Jonathan Jarman said there had been two probable cases discovered quickly after the first case, but there had been none since.
"When we start a public health investigation we always start with the people most at risk from TB. These are the people who live with the infectious case."
Dr Jarman said the man, who was the first TB case, had lost quite a bit of weight and was highly infectious when he was confirmed with the disease.
"We want to be on the safe side so we have checked people who were friends of the first case or who worked with him," he said.
While TB was classed as a disease of poverty and had long been thought of as a Third World disease, there have been about 10 to 20 cases a year in Northland and 400 cases per year in New Zealand in the past decade.
The disease usually affects the lungs, but is capable of targeting any part of the body.
Symptoms include loss of weight, feeling tired, sweating a lot at night and a cough which often had thick phlegm that would not go away.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health has issued a warning for people around the country to remain on the look out for TB symptoms.
The ministry said in a statement that recent cases of TB reinforced the need for continual vigilance by the public and health professionals for symptoms of the disease.
TB can be treated with antibiotics and if diagnosed early enough, most people completely recover from the disease.
- NORTHERN ADVOCATE
