Three more staff at the State's refugee applications centre in Dublin have tested positive in a screening programme for TB, The Irish Times has learned. This brings to six the number who have tested positive during initial screening. The screening was carried out last Tuesday, and further tests, including X-rays, were carried out on the three workers on Friday, to see if the initial results were valid. The results of the X-rays will be given to the employees this week. The preliminary results indicate only if a person has recently been exposed to TB.
This latest round of screening at the centre in Lower Mount Street followed the release of results of the first phase of tests on some other staff at the centre earlier this month, which showed three other workers had also been exposed to TB.
Results of final tests on those employees have been conveyed to the three staff concerned but have not been released into the public domain. However, it is understood that at least one of the staff was given the all clear.
All staff were extremely concerned that they may have picked up the highly contagious infection when the results of tests on the first group of workers were made known. They felt particularly at risk because they deal with refugees and asylum-seekers every day, some of whom enter the State from countries where TB is endemic.
Up to 16 per cent of those who tested positive for TB in the Eastern Health Board region in 1998 were non-nationals, according to figures published recently.
An official from SIPTU said workers at the centre were very worried about their health and he claimed the EHB was not taking the issue seriously enough.
A spokesman for IMPACT, which also represents staff at the centre, said the issue of screening refugees and asylum-seekers for infectious diseases as they enter the State must now be confronted.
"It raises an issue that has to be addressed now by the Eastern Health Board as a health authority rather than as an employer. This is a public health issue that needs to be debated and thrashed out.
"The board has been discussing and debating this issue for some time and it needs to be addressed in some form. Every precaution that is reasonable should be taken to prevent people being infected."