More than 1,000 people, including 350 infants, may have been exposed to tuberculosis in the maternity wing of a hospital in California after an active case of the disease was diagnosed in a nurse, hospital officials said Sunday.
The Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San Jose, California, said it was notified in mid-November that an employee who worked "in the area of the newborn nursery" had been given the diagnosis, with the potential to infect hospital staff and patients, including the newborns. The potential exposure occurred between August and November, it said.
Hospital officials said that as many as 1,026 people may have been exposed to the disease: 350 infants, 308 employees and 368 parents, primarily mothers. Hospital officials said they had identified all patients, staff members and visitors who might have been exposed and were contacting each one.
Dr. Stephen Harris, chairman of pediatrics at the hospital, said in a statement that the risk of infection remained low but that "the consequences of a tuberculosis infection in infants can be severe." He said the hospital would begin offering preventive treatment to the exposed infants "as soon as possible."
Those treatments include diagnostic testing as well as a daily dose of isoniazid, an antibiotic that can prevent infants exposed to tuberculosis from developing the disease, the hospital said. Employees and other patients, including the mothers, will also be screened and receive treatment as needed, hospital officials said.
Those screenings have already begun in the hospital's urgent care center, a spokeswoman, Joy Alexiou, said Sunday, with many more scheduled for the coming days. So far, no one has tested positive for the disease.
She described isoniazid, the drug being given to the infants, as "very effective at keeping tuberculosis from taking hold," but said the disease posed a special risk to them.
"In infants that young, it doesn't stay in the lungs like it does with older children or adults," she said. "There is the potential for it to go into their bloodstream and then infect other organs."
Tuberculosis is an airborne disease that spreads when an infected person coughs, sneezes or spits, but only someone with an active case is contagious. Although it typically attacks the lungs, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it can also attack other parts of the body, including the brain, spine and kidneys. If not properly treated, it can be fatal, the agency said.
Paul Lorenz, chief executive of the hospital, said in a Facebook post that the potential exposure was "an unusual and unfortunate circumstance." He tried to reassure patients and the wider community that hospital employees were properly tested for infectious disease.
"Everyone should feel confident that our staff are appropriately screened for tuberculosis and the safety of patients and staff is our top priority," he said in the post.
The hospital said the infected nurse tested negative for tuberculosis during an annual check in September. The diagnosis was made after her personal physician took an X-ray during a visit for an unrelated medical condition. The nurse has been placed on leave.
Tuberculosis was once the leading cause of death in the United States but has largely been tamed by advanced medicine, according to the CDC.
There were 9,421 cases of tuberculosis in the United States in 2014, the agency said. It reported that the disease killed 555 people in the United States in 2013, the most recent year for which data was available.