What can I do when logged in?

You can submit new articles, so we can make unique versions of them and distribute them for you.
If you want to simply publish the same article on 800 websites, you can tell us to do that.
You can see the archive and current status of all your article distributions.
You can order any number of high-quality articles - just let us know your keywords.
You can browse the archive of all the articles we have written for you.
You can order our Complete Service (10 high-quality articles plus 10 article distributions).
You can purchase more credits for our services and check your affiliate earnings.
Much more ...

SpinDistribute.com Article Directory

The following article was published in our article directory on October 25, 2010.
Learn more about SpinDistribute Article Distribution System.

TB Screening in Healthcare workers

Article Category: Medical Business

Author Name: Lawrence Earl, MD

The CDC continuously updates guidelines with regard to control of tuberculosis (TB) infection in healthcare settings. This is in response to several factors:

1) a resurgence of tuberculosis (TB) disease that occurred in the United States within the mid-1980s and early 1990s

2) the documentation of multiple high-profile health-care--associated outbreaks related to an increase in the prevalence of TB illness and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) coinfection

3) lapses in infection control practices

4) delays in the diagnosis and treatment of persons with infectious TB disease

5) the appearance and transmission of multidrug-resistant (MDR) TB strains

Some features of the updated guidelines of particular interest to the health care setting include a focus on risk assessment of foreign born workers, administration of those whom have received BCG vaccine, as well as the use of Interferon Gamma Release Assays (IGRAs), a new whole blood test, which may be used in addition to or instead of Tuberculin Skin Testing (TST) in Healthcare Workers (HCWs). In most cases, the frequency of serial testing for workers is reduced as a result of the new guidelines.

All healthcare facilities should have a comprehensive TB infection control plan that includes: Administrative controls, Environmental controls, and a Respiratory Protection Program. Within the Respiratory protection component, improvements to testing of healthcare workers is the focus of this discussion.

Many of our health care facility clients (nursing facilities in particular) employ foreign born employees. Rates of TB in the United States remain highest among these individuals. In addition, many might have received BCG vaccine in their home countries for protection against TB. You should note that vaccination with BCG does not reduce the risk of infection after exposure, although it may decrease the seriousness of TB disease and complications. Several questions are often raised regarding screening for TB in these individuals and in health care workers generally:

1. If they have a positive skin test reaction, when is it due to their BCG vaccine, and when does it mean they have "converted" from a negative reaction, indicating possible infection?

2. Do individuals who have had BCG vaccine need to be skin tested or should they get a chest x-ray every year?

3. What's the Interferon Gamma Release Assay (IGRA) and just how is it used in helping toassess TB status?

In a healthcare setting, the employees may be considered at moderate risk for TB infection, and should be tuberculin skin tested (TST-Mantoux) or IGRA, upon employing (using 2-step TST technique if formerly untested or undocumented, or over twelve months since previous) and then yearly. The yearly screening should include a symptom survey and TST/IGRA in those with previous negative tests. You are looking for conversion from the previously documented negative test to a positive test. In new hires who may have received BCG and their previous skin test is undocumented, they should undergo routine TST. BCG vaccine is NOT a contraindication to skin testing. In fact, in the event that it has been more than 5 years since the BCG vaccine, a positive skin test is probably the result of TB infection.

See our website for procedures to follow...

Keywords: a postive skin test, bcg vaccine, guidelines for,guidelines for healthcare facilities, healthcare workers, IGRA, IGRA test, interferon gamma, Interferon Gold, LTBI, screening, skin test, skin testing, TB, TB test, TST, tuberculosis, updated tb testing guidelines

Learn more about SpinDistribute Article Distribution System. We also offer a Pro Article Writing Service to everyone who needs premium quality well-researched articles.

SpinDistribute.com Network

Each article you submit at SpinDistribute.com is sent through our innovative Article Distribution System to our network of more than 1840 publishers - about 55% of them are high-quality article directories, 30% of them are niche blogs and 15% of them are other content-rich websites.

To achieve the best possible success we only publish your article to most related websites. This means your article will show up on approximately 640 - 880 most related websites which will give you great SEO results.

We also offer a separate Professional Article Writing Service to everyone who's looking for high quality web content and well researched unique articles.