Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

BCG Vaccination and Tuberculosis in Students of Nursing

1963; Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; Volume: 63; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/3452499

1538-7488

Sol Roy Rosenthal, M. L. Afremow, Lydia Nikurs, Erhard Loewinsohn, Marianne Leppmann, Elvyza Katele, Dorothy Liveright, Margaret G. Thorne,

Tuberculosis Research and Epidemiology

RECENT EXPERIMENTAL and clinical evidence has proved beyond doubt what was suspected for a long time, that the air in the environment of a patient with open tuberculosis contains virulent tubercle bacilli which can infect animals or man (1-3). In the experiment conducted by Riley, Wells, and their group, guinea pigs breathed the exhaust air from the rooms of patients who had active, open pulmonary tuberculosis. A high proportion of these animals became infected with virulent tubercle bacilli which were the same type as those of the patient to whose exhaust air the animal was exposed. According to a recent publication regarding a tuberculosis epidemic on a naval destroyer, more sailors sleeping in the compartment of the source patient acquired tuberculosis than those sleeping in other compartments (3). Sailors who walked through this compartment became infected or diseased at a greater rate than those not doing so. It follows, therefore, that nurses working in the rooms of tuberculous patients are exposed to virulent tubercle bacilli which may infect them. The hazard is even greater in the presence of an undiagnosed case of tuberculosis in a ward or room of a hospital, especially if contagious technique is not followed. Virulent tubercle bacilli are highly resistant to external forces and, once they gain entrance into the human body in sufficient numbers, may remain for the entire lifetime of the host and con-