STAFF OF PCF SPARKLETOTS IN CLEMENTI DIAGNOSED WITH TB, KIDS THERE TO BE SCREENED

Dear A.S.S. Editor

It has happened again, so soon after the last one in a pre-school in August last year. This time, a staff of a PCF Sparkletots pre-school was diagnosed with active tuberculosis. The pre-school in Clementi was immediately informed when this case is confirmed, triggering a mass screening of staff and children who had been in close contact with the infected staff.

So far, 66 staff and students of the school located at Clementi Avenue 1 had been screened by the MOH , with 45 tested negative, and 21 more awaiting a doctor’s evaluation. All 66 screened do not suffer from active TB. This must be a scary time for parents of the kids sent to the school. Most of these kids are very young, and most of the parents are worried about the TB skin test and how that would affect their young children.

Some 90 per cent of patients, including majority of the 1,500 Singapore residents who develop TB every year, are cured. But treatment lasts at least six months, and requires a specific combination of drugs to be taken daily.

Let’s hope that the TB does not spread to the other staff and students at the pre-school.

Sim N Y

A.S.S. Contributor