25 TB cases 'no cause for alarm'

Though relatively few hospital staff here have been infected with tuberculosis, preventive measures continue to be put in place.
"Of course, all health-care personnel are at risk of infectious disease, including TB," admitted Health Ministry director-general Datuk Dr Ismail Merican today, "but 25 out of some 12,000 employed by the ministry getting TB is no cause for alarm."
Dr Ismail said there were sufficient guidelines on dealing with TB, including reducing infectious droplet spread and engineering control measures.
In view of the cost, he said, older hospitals had to "phase in" engineering control measures.
Isolation facilities are also being upgraded in all hospitals.
Dr Ismail said infection control teams at hospitals were doing "a good job", observing that one of the reasons Malaysia was able to prevent Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003 was the efficiency of hospital control teams.
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