Nunavik reports nine new cases of TB

Infections with the tuberculosis bacteria, shown magnified here, remains a problem in Nunavik. (FILE IMAGE)

A year after Nunavik public health officials first announced they were facing an outbreak of tuberculosis in Kangiqsualujjuaq in 2012, TB is still cropping up in Nunavik in Salluit and in Kuujjuaq.

This prompted Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Services’ public health department to send out a May 6 advisory.

On May 1, nine cases of tuberculosis had been reported in Nunavik for 2013, the public health officials said: seven in Salluit, which also had at least eight cases of TB in 2012, and two in Kuujjuaq.

But that’s down from the recent past, when there were 27 cases of TB in 2011 and 75 in 2012, they said.

“The current outbreak in Salluit follows the tendency observed over the past few years of a rise in cases of active tuberculosis in both Nunavut and Nunavik,” they said.

The high TB rates in Nunavik and Nunavut have been linked to overcrowded housing, poor diet, poverty and high rates of smoking.

Since the outbreak in Kangiqsualujjuaq, public health officials, and the Ungava Tulattavik and Inuulitsivik health centres have continued efforts efforts to ensure a quick diagnosis and appropriate treatment of cases of active TB as well as follow-up for people who have been in contact with those cases.

Even though the situation seems relatively under control, it is important to remain vigilant, the May 6 advisory said.

Visiting houses where gambling occurs or where inhaled drugs are shared (the so-called gathering houses, which public health officials asked people to avoid in 2012), where people spend hours in overcrowded and poorly ventilated environments, constitutes a major risk of infection, if there’s someone there who has an undiagnosed case of TB.

Young people are often affected by TB, the advisory said.

They tend to delay consulting at the CLSC in spite of symptoms that indicate TB infection.

Public health officials said they need help from people in Nunavik to identify cases of active, contagious TB.

The symptoms of TB include:

• a major cough that lasts for more than three weeks;

• fatigue;

• loss of appetite;

• night sweats;

• weight loss; and,

• expectoration — the bringing up of phlegm from the lungs.

According to the World Health Organization, each person with active TB can infect 10 to 15 people a year, on average.

Most people infected with the tuberculosis bacillus, or germ, don’t become ill or even know they are infected, because the germ can lie dormant in a person’s lungs for many years.

But, without treatment, TB can eventually kill by gradually eating away at the lungs or, in rare cases, by spreading to other organs.