A MEMBER of staff at an Arnside care home is receiving hospital treatment for tuberculosis, reports Ellie Hargreaves.

The middle-aged woman, a nurse at Westmorland Court Nursing Home, was admitted to Westmorland General Hospital last week before being transferred to a Manchester hospital for further treatment of the infectious respiratory disease, a day later.

Director of public health at Morecambe Bay Primary Care Trust Dr Frank Atherton said the source of the outbreak was unknown but that the risk of residents or other workers at the home contracting the disease was very low.

"Tuberculosis is spread from person to person, by respiratory secretions, much like a cough or a cold," he explained. "We periodically get cases in the UK, and have had a couple in the Morecambe Bay area over the past few years.

"Everyone at the home has undergone a screening process which involves skin tests and chest X-rays for the elderly, many of whom could have been exposed in their childhoods. No more cases have come to light and the likelihood of any doing so has been evaluated as very low."

Around 7,000 TB cases are reported in the UK each year. The disease usually attacks the lungs but can affect almost any part of the body and is usually curable with an intensive six-month course of antibiotics. Symptoms include a cough that will not go away, feeling tired, weight loss, loss of appetite, fever, night sweats and coughing up blood.

Manager of the nursing home Jane Weatherall declined to comment when contacted yesterday.