Tuberculosis case at Lyell McEwin Hospital sparks screening program for adults, children and staff

Up to 150 patients have been called back for screening for an infectious disease after a confirmed case at a northern suburbs hospital.

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A patient who waited in the Lyell McEwin Hospital emergency department and later tested positive for tuberculosis may have exposed up to 150 people, it can be revealed.

SA Health has confirmed it is screening adults and children who attended the emergency department, and hospital staff, but so far no one else has tested positive.

Chief Public Health Officer Professor Nicola Spurrier said authorities expected to continue testing for up to eight weeks.

South Australian Chief Public Health Officer Professor Nicola Spurrier. Picture: David Mariuz

“While the risk to other people in the ED at the same time is considered very low, a screening program is currently underway out of an abundance of caution for up to 150 people who may have been exposed,” she said.

The adult patient was diagnosed with tuberculosis “recently” and had presented to the emergency department, in Elizabeth Vale, for unrelated issues “prior to diagnosis”.

“Once the person had been diagnosed with TB, all correct infection prevention protocols were followed,” Professor Spurrier said.

However, it was “possible they had transmissible TB when they had visited the ED”.

“All people who were in the ED at the same time were contacted to invite them, and anyone they had with them at the time, to be screened,” Professor Spurrier said.

“If people are identified as having been infected, antibiotics can be provided to prevent them becoming sick with TB in the future.”

Dedicated screening clinics to test children aged under five, who are potentially more at risk “because of their less mature immune system”, have been set up, including through the Women’s and Children’s Hospital infectious diseases pediatric team.

Tuberculosis is an infectious disease caused by a bacteria which can attack any part of the body, but most commonly affects the lungs.

Symptoms include a bad cough lasting longer than two weeks, pain in the chest, coughing up blood or phlegm, fever and weight loss.

Tuberculosis does not spread as easily as viruses such as influenza or Covid-19.

A person cannot transmit the disease unless they have symptoms and close exposure over many hours is usually required to infect another.

Each year there are an average of 80 new notifications of tuberculosis in SA – a rate that has remained relatively stable over the past decade.

An outbreak was declared in the APY Lands in the state’s far north in March, with at least 13 confirmed cases including one historical case and one death.

Another cluster of at least six cases was reported in the Murraylands later in the year.

The World Health Organisation says tuberculosis is the world’s deadliest infectious disease, killing nearly 4500 people a day.

There is a vaccine available but it is not part of routine childhood immunisations in Australia.

Some people can become sick months or years after exposure.

Originally published as Tuberculosis case at Lyell McEwin Hospital sparks screening program for adults, children and staff