Three pupils catch TB from teacher

Three primary school children have contracted tuberculosis from their teacher at a school in Portsmouth, health officials said yesterday.

Thirty-six children from Portsdown Primary School all aged 10 or 11, tested positive for exposure to the bacteria after their teacher was diagnosed as carrying the disease on 19 January.

Of the tested children, three have the disease and will have to take a six-month course of antibiotics. The remaining pupils have been prescribed antibiotics for three months to ensure that they do not develop the disease.

The infected teacher has not been named.

Paul Edmundson-Jones, director of public health for the Portsmouth City Primary Care Trust, said that the infected children would be allowed to continue to attend school and meet outsiders.

"None of these children are in any way infectious. They should not be avoided, people should not feel the need to avoid them and they can all go to school," he said yesterday.

He added: "TB is actually a difficult disease to pass on to somebody else; it requires prolonged contact."

Mr Edmundson-Jones said that the health authority had identified the source of the outbreak and had checked everyone who had been exposed to that person.

"We do not believe anyone else is infectious and we believe that we have the outbreak under control," he said.

As a precaution, the rest of the school's pupils, who had not been directly exposed to the disease, a total of about 240 pupils, as well as those students who had left the school last summer, are being tested. The results of the tests are due at the end of the week.