Scandinavian Journal of Infectious Diseases
Volume 40, Issue 9, 2008, Pages 709-714

Complexity in estimating recent tuberculosis transmission among predominantly immigrant school children in Stockholm, Sweden 2006 (Article)

Müller L.L.* , Bennet R. , Gaines H. , Zedenius I. , Berggren I.
  • a Epidemiological Department, Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control, Sweden, European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training (EPIET), Sweden
  • b Astrid Lindgren Children's Hospital, Karolinska University Hospital, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden
  • c Department of Immunology, Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control, Sweden, Division of Infections Diseases, Karolinska University Hospital, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden
  • d Department of Communicable Disease Control, Stockholm, Sweden
  • e Department of Communicable Disease Control, Stockholm, Sweden

Abstract

In January 2006, an after-school carer in Stockholm was diagnosed with open pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) after having been symptomatic for 3 months. The aim of this paper is to illustrate the difficulties encountered in estimating recent transmission of TB among children in an immigrant school population. A tuberculin skin test was performed on 261 pupils aged 6-15 y and an additional interferon-gamma release assay was performed on 20 children. In total, 76% of the children were born in Sweden; however, 95% of the parents originated from countries with TB incidence > 25/100,000. Three active TB cases were identified, 1 of whom was culture-positive with the same strain as the index case. Latent tuberculous infection (LTBI) was diagnosed in 35 children. However, the increased risk of earlier infection in this population makes it difficult to evaluate when transmission occurred. The magnitude of recent transmission from the index case will thus be uncertain and indications to treat less clear.

Author Keywords

[No Keywords available]

Index Keywords

symptomatology immigrant bacterial transmission lung infiltrate human controlled study Mycobacterium tuberculosis BCG vaccine Sweden Humans lung tuberculosis Adolescent male Emigrants and Immigrants Tuberculosis, Pulmonary female BCG vaccination gamma interferon Contact Tracing Article major clinical study tuberculin test infection risk thorax radiography Interferon-gamma bacterium culture cytokine release Child
Link
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-50549101939&doi=10.1080%2f00365540801995352&partnerID=40&md5=3adeb40e820bcc70a70c324444ef4fc6
DOI: 10.1080/00365540801995352
ISSN: 00365548
Cited by: 3
Original Language: English