For several employees of the meal supplier Maître in Oude-Tonge, infection with the TB bacterium has been established. That is what parent company Van Loon Group writes Sunday in a statement On the website. For the infected employees, an appointment was made at the GGD for a lung photo and a blood test at the beginning of this week, the company says.
De Telegraaf writes That the GGD has confirmed that it is a total of eighty infections. “During the screening we have carried out, possible infections are mapped, but this does not mean that there is TB disease or contagiousness,” said the spokesperson for the GGD-Rotterdam-Rijnmond to the newspaper.
On October 18, the company was told by the GGD that one of the employees was infected with TB. After more research by the health service, three more infections were found at the location on Goeree-Overflakkee (in Oude-Tonge). It was then decided to expand the investigation, Van Loon Group writes in the statement. That research has shown that even more employees are infected with the bacterium.
1 in 10
An infection with the TB bacterium does not mean that the person is also sick. According to RIVM, only 1 in 10 people who are infected with the TB bacterium also get the tuberculosis disease, and often takes months to years until an infected person becomes ill. The infectious disease is usually in the lungs and causes coughing, fever and problems with breathing. The disease is generally easy to treat, but can be deadly when that does not happen.
Tuberculosis is not common in the Netherlands. In 2023, the disease was diagnosed in 710 people, of which eighty percent of the sick came from abroad. A vaccine against TB is usually only given in the Netherlands when one of the parents comes from a country where the disease is common.
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