Posted on 02/21/2013 6:00:17 PM PST by NoLibZone
Public health officials have launched a new, coordinated effort to contain a persistent outbreak of tuberculosis in downtown L.A.’s skid row, including searching for more than 4,500 people who may have been exposed to the disease.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have dispatched scientists to Los Angeles to help local health officials figure out why the disease is spreading and how to stop it.
Nearly 80 tuberculosis cases have been identified and 11 people have died since 2007, most of them homeless people who live in and around skid row.
Scientists have recently linked the outbreak to one tuberculosis strain that is unique to Los Angeles, with a few isolated cases outside the area.
“This is the largest outbreak in a decade,” said Jonathan Fielding, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. “We are really putting all of our resources into this.”
Health workers have identified about 4,650 people who probably were exposed and are trying to track them down for testing and treatment. Local and federal officials are particularly concerned because the cases are all linked to one relatively small geographic area and one vulnerable population. Officials are worried the outbreak could spread beyond skid row if action isn’t taken.
Homeless people are especially at risk of getting tuberculosis and of being undiagnosed because they tend to have poor hygiene and nutrition, limited access to healthcare and ongoing contact with infected people. Transmission of the airborne disease is also common because they tend to live in overcrowded areas and to continually move among hospitals, shelters and the streets. Many homeless people also have substance abuse or mental health issues that can impede treatment.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimesblogs.latimes.com ...
“Ain’t multiculturalism grand?”
**
I’ve worked at Skid Row’s Covenant House (it was a favor) before my current job in Hollywood. Skid Row is mainly/mostly BLACKS and the funny thing: the illegals work for the fabric/fashion district in the area while the homeys blame whitey. steal bikes (and sell them), then deface the stores during night time.
There’s a reason why the mexicans do not respect homeys. They think they’re all lazy complainers who hate work..
Based on your limited posts to date on this thread, I’m going to call you an Illegal Immigrant Hugger, and chase you about the thread until you can’t stand it.
< / 1rudeboy >
Whatever floats your boat, so to speak. But wouldn’t it be easier to argue with the voices in your head, instead of falsely attributing a label, or argument, to me?
When people with active pulmonary TB cough, sneeze, speak, sing, or spit, they expel infectious aerosol droplets 0.5 to 5.0 µm in diameter. A single sneeze can release up to 40,000 droplets. Each one of these droplets may transmit the disease, since the infectious dose of tuberculosis is very low (the inhalation of fewer than 10 bacteria may cause an infection).
BTW, America is full of people with some degree of natural immunity to TB ~ but we also have some people who have a tendency to die from it in record time.
If you read through the information on the net regarding immunity there's not a whole lot of studies been done on that side of things ~ probably because we've had antibiotics that work.
Bump!
2/22/13
“Thousands May Have Been Exposed To Deadly TB Epidemic Downtown”
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