Migrant worker triggers TB alert

By AINSLEY THOMSON and ELIZABETH BINNING

A seasonal worker is believed to be responsible for up to 20 people in Coromandel testing positive for exposure to tuberculosis.

The Indonesian man, who is being treated at Waikato Hospital for the lung disease, was working at a mussel-processing factory.

The Weekend Herald understands between 10 and 20 people he was in contact with have tested positive.

Some are from the Sanford factory, which processes greenshell mussels.

A Sanford spokesman said the man stopped working at the factory when he was diagnosed.

The factory was not processing mussels at the time, but doctors confirmed there was no risk of passing the disease on through food.

Hamilton respiratory physician Dr Noel Karalus said up to 15 per cent of people who tested positive would become ill with the disease.

In 80 per cent of the cases, it would happen within two years of exposure.

The man was discovered to have TB when he was taken to the emergency department at Thames Hospital two months ago.

He is due to be discharged from Waikato Hospital next week, and is believed to be going back to his home in Indonesia.

People he had been in contact with are being traced.

The man has been in New Zealand for about two years.

Immigration Service spokesman Brett Solvander said the department had not heard about the case.

It is not known if the man was a permanent resident or was visiting on a permit.

Mr Solvander said it was standard policy for anyone coming into the country on a work permit to have a medical examination, which would detect TB.

If the disease was found, the permit would not be granted.

People entering the country on a visitor's permit were not screened because they were here for only a short time, usually less than three months.

Dr Karalus said Indonesia had one of the highest rates of TB in the world.

"Sixty per cent of TB in New Zealand is in immigrants and has been for more than a decade."