AL: TB Outbreak in Perry County- Health Department to give money to people screened and treated for TB (Media release)

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Source: http://adph.org/news/assets/160107.pdf

Perry County Health Department to give money to people screened and treated for TB
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
Pam Barrett
(334) 467-8208
Karen Landers, M.D., F.A.A.P.
(256) 246-1714

The Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH) is working to stop a tuberculosis (TB) outbreak in Perry County. The department is sending additional nurses and TB investigators to find patients with tuberculosis (TB) and to provide preventive therapy to people who may have been exposed to multiple active TB patients. These patients are primarily in the town of Marion
in Perry County.

?This is so important and of such concern that we are giving monetary incentives to people who come in for screening and necessary treatment,? Pam Barrett, director of the Division of TB Control, said.

From Jan. 11 through Jan. 29, the Perry County Health Department will give

? $20 to anyone coming in to be screened for TB by the TSPOT blood test.

? Another $20 for returning after three days to get the result.

? A third $20 for keeping an appointment to get a chest X-ray if it is recommended.

? An additional $100 to a patient if it is recommended he or she take medication and treatment is completed.

Perry County is the only local health department that will offer money to patients for TB screening and treatment.

Patients diagnosed with TB in other cities and towns in Alabama are known to be linked to cases in Marion. Specifically, 20 of 26 patients diagnosed since January 2014 are from Marion, four are from the Tuscaloosa area, and two are from Centreville.

This is a case rate of 253 per 100,000 population in the town of Marion. This far exceeds the TB case rate of 2.5 per 100,000 in the whole state of Alabama in 2015. Of these 26 patients, four of them are children. Three adults have died.

Symptoms of TB include cough lasting more than two weeks, shortness of breath, fever, night sweats, weight loss and fatigue. A person may be infected with the TB germ and have no symptoms. Fortunately, patients can be treated preventively before becoming ill.

Testing will be done on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. at the Perry County Health Department at 1748 S. Washington St., Marion. All services are provided at no charge. No appointment is needed for this service.

For further information or questions, please contact
Pam Barrett, Director, Division of TB Control, at (334) 467-8208, or pam.barrett@adph.state.al.us.

1/7/16

 

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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/19/us/alabama-more-test-positive-for-tuberculosis.html?_r=0

Alabama: More Test Positive for Tuberculosis
By ALAN BLINDERJAN. 18, 2016

The scale of a tuberculosis outbreak in rural Perry County widened Monday when state officials said that 47 residents last week tested positive for the bacterial infection. Those people, who are suspected of having an asymptomatic infection, will receive additional health care services as the authorities try to stop an outbreak that has now sickened or infected 73 people in and near Perry County since January 2014...

 

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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/18/u...icine-fuels-a-tuberculosis-outbreak.html?_r=0

In Rural Alabama, a Longtime Mistrust of Medicine Fuels a Tuberculosis Outbreak
By ALAN BLINDERJAN. 17, 2016

MARION, Ala. ? When Patricia Church, a 41-year-old warehouse worker, felt sick recently, she suspected that she had a cold. But she also feared something more deadly that has been going around this small, impoverished city: tuberculosis.

?I feel like I had been around someone that had it, and I might die from it if I don?t find out whether I got it or not and get it treated,? Ms. Church said after she learned last week that she did not have the disease. ?I was nervous. I was real nervous.?

Marion is in the throes of a tuberculosis outbreak so severe that it has posted an incidence rate about 100 times greater than the state?s and worse than in many developing countries. Residents, local officials and medical experts said the struggle against the outbreak could be traced to generations of limited health care access, endemic poverty and mistrust ? problems that are common across the rural South.

?There?s not a culture of care-seeking behavior unless you?re really sick,? said Dr. R. Allen Perkins, a former president of the Alabama Rural Health Association. ?There?s not support for local medical care, so when something like this happens, you have a health delivery system that?s unprepared.?...

 

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Source: http://apr.org/post/tuberculosis-epidemic-endures

Tuberculosis epidemic endures
By MacKenzie Bates ? 3 hours ago

A few weeks ago, the small town of Marion in Alabama?s black belt came down with a tuberculosis epidemic. Officials with State Department of Public Health are still seeing people to treat the respiratory disease. APR?s MacKenzie Bates went back to the Perry County town to check on the progress..

...The tuberculosis outbreak in the small Perry County town is both getting better and worse. They?ve seen more than 15-hundred people in Marion and the surrounding areas.

?We?ve had 85 that came back that have latent TB infection,? Barrett says. ?It does not mean they have Active TB disease. It just means that they?ve got the germ in their body that causes TB.?

Barrett says 27 people have tested positive for active TB, 21 of which live in Perry County. The disease has killed three people in the area since 2011. Symptoms for TB include a nagging cough, sudden weight loss, and night sweats. It spreads when people are in close contact with one another...

 

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Source: http://www.selmatimesjournal.com/2016/02/05/two-more-cases-of-tb-reported-in-marion/


Two more cases of TB reported in Marion
Published 11:33pm Friday, February 5, 2016

The number of confirmed cases of tuberculosis in Perry County continues to grow.

On Friday, it was released that two more patients ? one adult and one child under 15 years old ? were diagnosed with TB in Perry County. Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley announced the authorization of more than $235,000 in emergency funding for the Alabama Department of Public Health?s ongoing response to the TB outbreak Friday.

The emergency funding will go toward the testing, follow-up and treatment of Perry County residents...

...With the two additional cases of TB, the total number of those diagnosed in Marion has increased to 23. There are 29 confirmed cases across the state, with four in Tuscaloosa and two in Centreville.

Dr. Pam Barrett, TB controller with the ADPH, said 11 more patients are currently being seen for TB...