Second Baby Born at Texas Hospital Tests Positive for Tuberculosis
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Photodisc/Thinkstock(EL PASO, Texas) — A baby born at Providence Memorial Hospital in Texas has tested positive for a latent tuberculosis infection, health officials announced Saturday. The child, born in 2013, is the second to test positive without having been vaccinated with the Bacillus Calmette–Guérin, or BCG, vaccine.
The diagnosis comes a week after a total of 853 were identified as potentially exposed to a healthcare worker with an active case of the disease.
In addition to Saturday’s case, four other babies who have received the BCG vaccine have tested positive for tuberculosis, but it is unknown if these are false positives due to their vaccinations, according to the City of El Paso Department of Public Health.
“While we wish no child would test positive for TB, we did anticipate a positive rate of one percent,” said Robert Resendes, Public Health Director.
“With two non-BCG vaccinated positive test results, we are still well below that percentage. To the best of our knowledge, there has been no active TB disease discovered in any of the tested babies.”
Officials said hundreds of patients and more than 40 employes were exposed in the post-partum and newborn nursery area of the Texas hospital between September 2013 and August 2014.
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