On the rise

Tuberculosis has made a surprise re-appearance in Britain and young children are particularly at risk. Barbara Millar examines the causes and cures

Last year three outbreaks of tuberculosis (TB) in the UK hit the headlines. All involved children. In one case, eight children at a school in south Wales were affected. A second case saw 23 secondary school pupils and teachers struck down in Leicester, while the third centred on a private nursery school in south London where a nursery teacher was diagnosed with TB and four three-year-olds were subsequently declared to have the disease.

These cases are just part of an increase in TB world-wide. With over eight million people contracting the disease every year, the World Health Organization has called it 'a global emergency'. Even in Britain, where most people thought the disease had been wiped out after the 1950s, when there were around 50,000 cases a year, TB is on the rise. Last year there were over 7,000 new cases in the UK, with a 40 per cent rise for the whole country and a 100 per cent rise in London, where cases doubled from 1,500 the previous year to 3,000.