Akron (Ohio) Children's Hospital, part of Akron-based Summa Health, started notifying staff and families of patients in its neonatal intensive care unit earlier this month that their child may have been exposed to tuberculosis.
The Summit County Health District was notified Jan. 3 that a resident was diagnosed with TB and the subsequent investigation found the person had visited the hospital's NICU between mid-November and mid-December.
"The risk of infection is low, but because TB can be more serious in young children we would like to evaluate these infants and begin them on a protective antibiotic," said John Bower, MD, a pediatric infectious disease specialist with the hospital. "We have set up a clinic and are providing this care at no cost to our patient families."
Sign up for our FREE E-Weekly for more coverage like this sent to your inbox!
Public health officials are also urging adult caregivers, older children and others who visited the unit during the time period to get a TB test.
TB is caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which spreads in the air when someone with an active TB infection coughs, speaks or sings. TB is not easily spread — it usually takes repeated prolonged exposure to pass on the bacteria.
Children may be more difficult to diagnose with TB as they tend to have fewer symptoms than adults, or the symptoms look like common viral infections, according to Summa Health.
TB is becoming more common in the U.S., as the number of TB cases increased from 2014 to 2015 after having declined yearly from 1993 through 2014, according to the CDC.