Health services scaled back over Yellowknife TB outbreak

Yellowknife Public Health is accepting only urgent appointments as a result of a tuberculosis concern that appears to have developed days ago but was only publicized for the first time in a Wednesday radio interview.

The territory announced the outbreak on CBC North’s morning radio show without having formally declared one anywhere else. Unusually, no written declaration of an outbreak had been made public as of noon on Wednesday.

Yet the NWT’s health authority – which isn’t responsible for declaring outbreaks – told Cabin Radio it had begun reducing services on Friday, June 28 “to ensure capacity to respond to the outbreak of tuberculosis in Yellowknife.”

According to the CBC, the outbreak amounts to two recently identified cases.

The broadcaster quoted acting chief public health officer Dr André Corriveau as saying he had declared an outbreak “because of the volume of work that’s going to be involved in following up on these cases” and carrying out contact tracing.

“I don’t think the average person in the city needs to be worried,” the CBC reported Dr Corriveau had said, though he said in the same interview that there had been “a lot of potential exposures.”

No further information was immediately available.

The health authority said its reduction in services will continue until at least July 8 and may be extended.

“During this reduction of services, appointment requests will be triaged, and no new appointments will be booked with public health unless identified as urgent,” the authority told Cabin Radio by email.

“Any patients who had non-urgent scheduled appointments have already been notified and their appointments have been reviewed and rescheduled as required.”

Tuberculosis symptoms include a cough that lasts for more than three weeks, fever, night sweats, chills, chest pain, the coughing-up of blood, and fatigue. Unintended weight loss or loss of appetite can also be signs.

More follows.

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