Newborns in San Francisco exposed to TB

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 27 (UPI) -- Nearly 1,000 newborn babies at a San Francisco hospital may have been exposed to tuberculosis, officials said.

Officials at Kaiser Permanente said Tuesday that the hospital is reaching out to the mothers of 960 infants, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. They said that a part-time employee in the post-partum unit of the maternity ward has been diagnosed with an active case of TB.

In addition to patients, 115 hospital employees may have been exposed between March 10 and Aug. 10, officials said. The employee with TB no longer works at the hospital.

Dr. Stephen Parodi, chief of infectious diseases for Kaiser Permanente in Northern California, said that all those exposed to the employee are being contacted individually and asked to take a skin test. If the test is positive, further testing will be done.

"We feel that this is a low-risk exposure, but we want to be aggressive about identifying any potential contacts," Parodi said.