Trainee pilots tested after TB case

12thAugust 2006, 14:30 WST

The Health Department has been forced to test 260 international aviation students for tuberculosis after a Chinese man studying at a WA pilottraining college was diagnosed with the highly contagious disease.

The department has screened staff and students from the China Southern West Australian Flying College, based in Jandakot and Merredin, who may have had contact with the infected man. It is understood the man is being treated for tuberculosis, a bacterial infection that mainly affects the lungs and is spread by inhaling airborne germs, after contracting the disease last month.

Department spokeswoman Shirley Bowen said it was likely the man contracted tuberculosis in China. The 45 students deemed at risk of getting the disease had been placed on a preventive treatment regime. Staff and students having the preventive treatment would have further tests and chest X-rays in a year if they remained in Australia, Dr Bowen said.

She said although refugees and migrants were screened routinely for tuberculosis, people entering Australia on an international student visa were not tested. But Dr Bowen said people should not panic because extensive screening meant there was little chance of the disease spreading in the community.

“In terms of risk to the wider community, we are doing everything we can to make sure the transmission risk (is minimised),” she said. “There is nothing else that could be done.”

About 65 cases of tuberculosis are reported in WA each year.

Flying college administration officer Burt Hoogland said students’ medical information was confidential and refused to discuss the issue. More than 100 cadet pilots graduate each year from the college and return to work for China Southern Airlines, the company’s website says.

Opposition health spokesman Kim Hames yesterday renewed his call for mandatory health screenings for skilled migrants working in WA in light of the push by business lobby groups to increase the number of skilled migrants coming into Australia by 40,000 a year.

“We should have mandatory screenings,” Dr Hames said. “Tuberculosis is a dangerous disease. It doesn’t just cause lung disease, it causes severe illnesses.”

He said considerable effort was made to prevent the disease spreading through foreign plant matter and the same effort should be made to protect the community from illness.

“If it is a plant (being brought into Australia) we are rigorous in trying to keep it out,” Dr Hames said.

Megan Sadler and Nicole Cox