Chemnitz (dpa/sn) – The outbreak of tuberculosis in a nursing school and a nursing home in Chemnitz is spreading. So far, a total of 75 contact persons of a sick nursing student in the city have been examined. The city administration announced on Thursday that a third had tuberculosis infections. Not every infection leads to disease. But the disease also broke out in a close contact of the sick nursing student. It was a contagious pulmonary tuberculosis that had to be treated, it said.
That’s why the health department is now looking for other contacts. The nursing school and another nursing home are also affected. According to the authorities, two other suspected cases of tuberculosis were also found in the previous investigations. Here the diagnostics are running in the hospital, so that no precise statement on the degree of a possible risk of infection is possible.
The disease is caused by bacteria and is notifiable. The pathogens are mainly excreted through coughing and sneezing and spread through aerosols in the air. Whether an infection occurs depends, among other things, on how long and intensive the contact with the sick person was and how susceptible the person is to infection, according to the Federal Center for Health Education. According to the Robert Koch Institute, the number of new cases in Germany has fallen in recent years. In 2021 there were almost 3900.
