Search Results for 'Tuberculosis'

Week II

At least 12 employees at University Hospital Galway, including nurses and care staff, have contracted latent tuberculosis from a patient who was diagnosed with the active form of the condition at the facility earlier this year.

It is no coincidence that the Regional (now the University College) Hospital and Merlin Park opened almost simultaneously in the mid 1950s. The Old Central Hospital, which had opened in 1922, became unfit for purpose, mainly due to overcrowding, and the difficulty accommodating long stay tuberculosis patients. Tuberculosis, or TB, was, in the early decades of the 20th century, at epidemic proporations. The same year that the Central Hospital opened, the same year as the foundation of our State, there were 4,614 deaths from TB; 611 were children under 15 years.

No new cases of tuberculosis have been identified in the city since last month when three third level students were diagnosed with the bacterial infection.

Three students have been diagnosed with tuberculosis recently at two third level colleges in the city. Two are attending NUI Galway and one is a student at GMIT.

A European wide shortage of the BCG vaccine has led to a delay for Mayo children due to get the jab.

A TB screening programme conducted by the HSE West in Inis Oirr, the smallest of the Aran Islands, has been completed.

The HSE West Department of Public Health is offering screening to everyone living on Inis Oírr following confirmation of tuberculosis infection on the island.

A team at NUI Galway’s Molecular Diagnostics Research Group have developed a new diagnostic DNA test which will help in global efforts to control tuberculosis.

The reduction in frontline medical services has left Galway “on the doorstep of an epidemic”. The claim was made by Senator Fidelma Healy Eames who has expressed concern at the lack of community health doctors in the area, which has led to a reduction in BCG vaccines and development checks in children.