Ruby Princess - Crew Member with Tuberculosis

[LittleFish1976]

NSW Health is contacting all Ruby Princess passengers after a crew member was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Crew member is being treated in Sydney.

 

Let anyone you know who was on-board the ship in case Health dept doesn't contact them. I would guess that it could be relevant to anyone who was on-board in the past few months as it tends to be a slow-moving disease.

[Cruisegroover]

A copy of the letter to passengers.

[LittleFish1976]

11 minutes ago, Cruisegroover said:

A copy of the letter to passengers.

Thanks. That's interesting. I wonder why they are only targeting one cruise unless the crew member had just joined or was a temporary addition to their staff. Odd.

 

[sewgood]

1 minute ago, LittleFish1976 said:

Thanks. That's interesting. I wonder why they are only targeting one cruise unless the crew member had just joined or was a temporary addition to their staff. Odd.

 

Yes, I'm wondering that too.

[LittleFish1976]

11 minutes ago, sewgood said:

Yes, I'm wondering that too.

And given that TB is still a huge world health problem I'm surprised the cruise lines don't require vaccination certificates from the crew before deployment although the old vaccine that a lot of us would have had and is still the one used doesn't cover the novel strains of TB that are around these days. Then there's the drug-resistant kind of TB...I'd be having some sort of test if I'd been on the ship.

 

[Pushka]

24 minutes ago, LittleFish1976 said:

And given that TB is still a huge world health problem I'm surprised the cruise lines don't require vaccination certificates from the crew before deployment

Agree. I expect though that most crew would have been vaccinated - or is that inoculated - as many developing countries still vaccinate. 
 

And why is he being treated in Sydney? He must have had Covid.  

[lyndarra]

1 hour ago, LittleFish1976 said:

Thanks. That's interesting. I wonder why they are only targeting one cruise unless the crew member had just joined or was a temporary addition to their staff. Odd.

 

Such as an entertainer perhaps?

[banzaii]

Wow, the Ruby Princess brand really needs this like a hole in the head!

[Pushka]

1 hour ago, banzaii said:

Wow, the Ruby Princess brand really needs this like a hole in the head!

Why does this only happen with Princess. There is something that is very much amiss here. 

[Shiprobbo]

Interesting.

 

Something is not quite right here. Ruby Princess left a month ago, so if we assume that the patient in question was among the last cohort of crew to disembark, he/she has been under the care of specialists in communicable diseases since at least early May and it has taken a month to find out they have TB???? Frankly I know we are dealing with Covid-19 here, but I would have thought that an early test for TB would have been part of the elimination process. The communication from NSW Health states that the patient was diagnosed 'many weeks after you were on the cruise', why if there was no initial test, was there a subsequent one??

 

Perhaps it would be cynical to think that NSW Health is attempting to divert attention back to Ruby Princess and perhaps show medical standards on ships are not as good as they could be. Unfortunately TB is a fact of life, particularly if you travel. In 2018 1.5 million people worldwide died from TB, with approximately 10 million cases recorded. Of these 1.1 million were children and 205,000 of those died. The majority of cases originate in China, Indonesia and the Philippines, together with a further 5 Asian region countries. On this basis I would have thought elimination of TB as a factor in any treatment of a patient who presented with a respiratory condition and originated from one of these countries, would have been high on the 'to do' list.

 

So, the next question is...did the patient have TB or actually contract it in the hospital where they are being treated? There are approximately 1,200 cases of TB annually in Australia, it would be reasonable to assume that some of those are being treated in the same hospital, in the same isolation ward given that this is also a respiratory condition. With already weekend respiratory performance and lowered immunity, one wonders.

 

 

[Pushka]

5 minutes ago, Shiprobbo said:

 

So, the next question is...did the patient have TB or actually contract it in the hospital where they are being treated? There are approximately 1,200 cases of TB annually in Australia, it would be reasonable to assume that some of those are being treated in the same hospital, in the same isolation ward given that this is also a respiratory condition. With already weekend respiratory performance and lowered immunity, one wonders.

Is this a serious question? 

[MicCanberra]

Goodness, it never ends.

 

[LittleFish1976]

10 hours ago, Shiprobbo said:

Interesting.

 

Something is not quite right here. Ruby Princess left a month ago, so if we assume that the patient in question was among the last cohort of crew to disembark, he/she has been under the care of specialists in communicable diseases since at least early May and it has taken a month to find out they have TB???? Frankly I know we are dealing with Covid-19 here, but I would have thought that an early test for TB would have been part of the elimination process. The communication from NSW Health states that the patient was diagnosed 'many weeks after you were on the cruise', why if there was no initial test, was there a subsequent one??

 

Perhaps it would be cynical to think that NSW Health is attempting to divert attention back to Ruby Princess and perhaps show medical standards on ships are not as good as they could be. Unfortunately TB is a fact of life, particularly if you travel. In 2018 1.5 million people worldwide died from TB, with approximately 10 million cases recorded. Of these 1.1 million were children and 205,000 of those died. The majority of cases originate in China, Indonesia and the Philippines, together with a further 5 Asian region countries. On this basis I would have thought elimination of TB as a factor in any treatment of a patient who presented with a respiratory condition and originated from one of these countries, would have been high on the 'to do' list.

 

So, the next question is...did the patient have TB or actually contract it in the hospital where they are being treated? There are approximately 1,200 cases of TB annually in Australia, it would be reasonable to assume that some of those are being treated in the same hospital, in the same isolation ward given that this is also a respiratory condition. With already weekend respiratory performance and lowered immunity, one wonders.

 

 

 

Tuberculosis in Australia is seen in people coming here from other countries, predominantly south east Asia. One can assume that the crew member of the Ruby Princess has been being treated in hospital for the past month or so for Covid and the information is now being released that that person also has TB.

 

Stands to reason if the TB was discovered once the person started to, or had recovered from the covid in looking for further reasons for his or her respiratory symptoms.

 

Most cruise travellers from Australia would be of an age where they would have been vaccinated at school when they were around 12 years of age.

 

 

[pully8]

As others have said about 1200-1500 TB cases are recorded in Australia annually.

There are some strains that are resistant to antibiotic treatment, and other types too.

Anyone with an impaired immune system is vulnerable including those with HIV.

Most cases are treatable. Some have a latent infection and are not clinically ill.

Years ago TB was prevalent in buffalo in the NT, most were culled checked and used for pet food.

Some crew come from countries with high rates of TB and other transmissible infections. Hopefully the person has recovered.  

[Pushka]

13 hours ago, LittleFish1976 said:

 

Tuberculosis in Australia is seen in people coming here from other countries, predominantly south east Asia. One can assume that the crew member of the Ruby Princess has been being treated in hospital for the past month or so for Covid and the information is now being released that that person also has TB.

 

Stands to reason if the TB was discovered once the person started to, or had recovered from the covid in looking for further reasons for his or her respiratory symptoms.

 

Most cruise travellers from Australia would be of an age where they would have been vaccinated at school when they were around 12 years of age.

 

 

Some states never had the TB vaccination schedule and pretty much Australia wide it was discontinued in the early '80s. This was discussed in another thread where the TB immunisation was given to Aussie medical workers to see if it was useful Covid preventative tool. But we never really were inundated to check this theory out.