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Union shut Amazon Warehouse in Coventry as an outbreak of TB has been found about 10 people appear to have it.

Barbara Stevens ● 288d14 Comments

This is very concerning because TB had been more or less been eradicated in our country but it has resurfaced again.    Over the last 20 years numbers in the UK have been rising slowly. About 9000 people now get TB each year – around one person in every 7000 of the population.In England, there were 5,490 notified cases of TB in 2024, a significant rise from 4,855 in 2023, though overall risk to the general population remains low. Most cases (over 80%) involve people born outside the UK, with rates rising due to global trends, deprivation, and challenges in containment, despite TB being preventable and curable. Key Figures & Trends:* 2024 England Cases: 5,490. 
* 2023 England Cases: 4,855, marking the largest year-on-year increase in recent times. 
* Rate: England's rate of 8.5 per 100,000 people (2023 data) is below the World Health Organization's (WHO) threshold for high incidence, but efforts to meet elimination targets are lagging. 
* Demographics: Over 80% of new cases are in individuals born outside the UK, though increases are seen in both UK-born and non-UK-born populations. 
So, cases of TB have been steadily rising in the last 20 years along with rising numbers of immigrants.  Coincidence, or cause and effect?


Sue Hammond ● 287d

Hi Sue, very interesting, my dad when I was about 2 had suspected TB and was in a Sanatorium in Bournemouth I think, another young lady in a road next to me in Barnes her mother was also in a home, the father had to bring up the 2 girls for a while. Let's hope they find the source,to many coming into the country.

Barbara Stevens ● 287d

"So, cases of TB have been steadily rising in the last 20 years along with rising numbers of immigrants.  Does that mean that now that immigration numbers are finally dropping (quite dramatically under Labour) that we can expect TB numbers to drop?Or is the damage already done?

Michael Brigo ● 287d

Yes, it is contagious if in the lungs and throat and can be spread by coughing and sneezing. I think that is why men or anybody should not spit on the ground when they are out.

Barbara Stevens ● 287d

We were taught this when we were young, also I had to have an Ex ray in Richmond somewhere, I was a toddler and scared stiff.  Also Polio my aunt had a caliper on her leg and a girl at school had polio in her arm.

Barbara Stevens ● 287d

People go out as well and bring things back!  You forgot the poor cramped living and working conditions many now have while there are lots of empty and half empty homes as well.  There is a growth in the use of food banks and also the immoral wasting of huge amiunts of good food.  There is a  huge difference between rich and poor.Unfortunately many homes have not been maintained and are not suitable for the changing climatic conditions snd difficult monetary situation many are experiencing..  We used to throw open our windows every morning as a matter course to ventilate our homes.  Now we seal them to keep warm in winter and even close the ventilators many windows have designed in and/or switch off the electrical ventilation systems installed all in order to save money without realising their importance.

Philippa Bond ● 287d

Yes, I knew people at school with polio.  There also used be signs about not spitting in the street and not out of the windows of a train.I remember having inoculations against various illnesses. The TB one was the BCG.  Wasn't the polio one the sugar cube one we looked forward to as kids?

Philippa Bond ● 287d

@Barbara 11.43TB was rife after WW2 and my Dad came out of the Royal with his discharge documentation but TB as well.  He did spend time in a sanatorium but I don’t know where because it was before I was born.  He was fortunate in as much that that his lungs did not suffer any long term damage.  When I was old enough to know that he’d had TB I couldn’t understand why there seemed to be a stigma about the disease, wtf was that all about because many men in the armed forces contracted the disease whilst doing their national service.  My BCG vaccination bloody hurt though and the scar is still faintly visible on the top of my left arm.

Sue Hammond ● 287d

My father lost a good friend (probably c.1930-32) to TB. Off to an isolation hospital and died quickly as I understand it. I have seen a photo of him camping with my father and friends, a strong, strapping sort of bloke. According to my aunt, my father could never speak of him again.  "The industrial revolution, starting in the 18th-century England and coupled with poverty, urbanisation and squalor, created an optimal environment for the propagation of TB. One in four deaths were due to TB by the early 19th century. Since then, the remarkable decline in the burden of TB at an average annual rate of 3.3% between 1913 and 1940, documented in one of the longest ever recorded time series of data on the burden of TB, a notifiable disease in the UK since 1912, was only interrupted by the two world wars. During those years, the temporary peaks in both incidence and mortality were linked to impoverishment of the population and poorer nutrition. In the years following the Second World War, as in other Western European countries, the fall in TB burden significantly accelerated to an average annual decline of 10% between 1955 and 1960 following the advent of modern chemotherapy. This allowed a reduction in transmission and drastically improved the prognosis of the disease, with a case fatality ratio (approximated as the ratio of mortality over incidence) of about 50% in the prechemotherapy era dropping to less than 10% within a decade of the introduction of chemotherapy. A decline in the effective contact rate and low TB rates have also been achieved in other settings that have in common a combination of near-universal access to high-quality TB diagnosis and treatment, social protection and general socioeconomic development with improved nutrition and living and working conditions."https://thorax.bmj.com/content/73/8/702Also see chart:-Decline in TB mortality in England and Wales, and its association in time with the two World Wars, and the introduction of chemotherapy against TBhttps://tinyurl.com/53h7tm92

David Ainsworth ● 287d

Sue, my dad must have had TB in about 1952. He was in the Royal Navy from when he was young. When the war finished he must have been 43. Afraid he only lasted till he was 60. I've also got the injection scar, was painful.

Barbara Stevens ● 287d

I've actually got pictures of my dad in the Sanatorium in bed and where they all sat for their dinner. My mum took me on the train to collect him when he came out of hospital.

Barbara Stevens ● 287d

@BarbaraDid your Dad have any problems with his lungs/chest in the years following his treatment?

Sue Hammond ● 287d

Not sure Sue, he went to work on his pop motor bike to Firestones  Great West Rd, was an engineer. Think he had in the end liver problems, cirrhosis of the liver, but said non alcohol. I have his death certificate. Don't remember him having breathing problems, I got Whooping cough when I was really young.  Did it cause your dad a problem

Barbara Stevens ● 287d

My dad was also in St.Georges hospital Hyde Park in about 1959. Also the Royal Free, but they never let children in the ward in those days. Or your parents tell you much. But what I did here when I was about 21 the landlord of the pub round the corner, said my mum could have got a pay out for the wrong injection he was given. But my mum turned to me when I mentioned it, well it won't bring him back, so I shut.up

Barbara Stevens ● 287d