Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Tuberculosis is considered a curable and preventable infectious disease in the world. Malaysia is classified as a country with an intermediate Tuberculosis burden compared to other ASEAN countries and Malaysian Armed Forces are no exception. Apart from an Active Tuberculosis, Latent Tuberculosis is seen as another health problem and on the rise during the outbreak management of Tuberculosis. METHODS: There was a Tuberculosis outbreak occurred in the Malaysian military camp in October 2018 involving 111 students and trainers attending four months career course. All these students came from six different army camps around Malaysia. An outbreak investigation was conducted to look into the causes, issues and epidemiological link with another Tuberculosis outbreak happened in another military camp. RESULTS: The index case was diagnosed during the course and the contact tracing done diagnosed another two cases of Active Tuberculosis with another 15 students (13.5%) diagnosed with a Latent Tuberculosis. Active Tuberculosis management was conducted on three cases (2.7%) of Active Pulmonary Tuberculosis while chemo prophylaxis was commenced on all Latent Tuberculosis cases for 6-month duration. No epidemiological link can be seen related to a similar outbreak happened in another camp. Control and prevention were conducted by the medical element at the military camp and the patients were followed-up for six months after the completion of treatment. CONCLUSION: Vigorous Tuberculosis outbreak management involving government stewardship and accountability, with monitoring and evaluation at the military camp are needed to ensure prompt treatment and control can be delivered.
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@proceedings{APCPH-2019-216,
title = {Managing Outbreak of Pulmonary Tuberculosis in Military Setting: Issues and Challenges},
author = {Noorhashirin Harith},
year = {2019},
date = {2019-07-22},
urldate = {2019-07-22},
journal = {6th Asia-Pacific Conference on Public Health 2019 Proceedings},
issue = {6},
abstract = {INTRODUCTION: Tuberculosis is considered a curable and preventable infectious disease in the world. Malaysia is classified as a country with an intermediate Tuberculosis burden compared to other ASEAN countries and Malaysian Armed Forces are no exception. Apart from an Active Tuberculosis, Latent Tuberculosis is seen as another health problem and on the rise during the outbreak management of Tuberculosis. METHODS: There was a Tuberculosis outbreak occurred in the Malaysian military camp in October 2018 involving 111 students and trainers attending four months career course. All these students came from six different army camps around Malaysia. An outbreak investigation was conducted to look into the causes, issues and epidemiological link with another Tuberculosis outbreak happened in another military camp. RESULTS: The index case was diagnosed during the course and the contact tracing done diagnosed another two cases of Active Tuberculosis with another 15 students (13.5%) diagnosed with a Latent Tuberculosis. Active Tuberculosis management was conducted on three cases (2.7%) of Active Pulmonary Tuberculosis while chemo prophylaxis was commenced on all Latent Tuberculosis cases for 6-month duration. No epidemiological link can be seen related to a similar outbreak happened in another camp. Control and prevention were conducted by the medical element at the military camp and the patients were followed-up for six months after the completion of treatment. CONCLUSION: Vigorous Tuberculosis outbreak management involving government stewardship and accountability, with monitoring and evaluation at the military camp are needed to ensure prompt treatment and control can be delivered.},
note = {Type: POSTER PRESENTATION; Organisation: Malaysian Armed Forces Health Services},
keywords = {Latent Tuberculosis, Malaysian Armed Forces, Pulmonary Tuberculosis},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {proceedings}
}