Tuberculosis threatens orphanage

  • 2002-02-21
  • Sergei Stepanov
NARVA - More than 100 children from orphanages in the northeastern county of Ida-Virumaa recently contracted tuberculosis, which medical experts say could dramatically spread in the near future.

"We are sitting on a volcano with no idea of when it will explode," said Tatyana Galperina, a pediatrician from the Kohtla-Jarve Lung Hospital.

According to Galperina, 106 children living in Kohtla-Jarve and Kohtla-Nomme orphanages are infected.

"While none of them has yet develop active tuberculosis, it is only a question of time," said Galperina.

TB is an infectious disease that is harmless to carriers until it develops into so-called active tuberculosis.

It can be cured with modern medicine, but doctors here say Estonia's northeastern region lacks the proper equipment and funds.

The children at the orphanage are particularly difficult to treat. They have been prescribed a six-month regimen of medication, vitamins and a special diet. But many just run away.

"Some even jump out of second-floor windows to get away," she said.

She described the health of the children as poor.

"They'd been living on the streets or in cellars where they contacted people sick with tuberculosis before they came to the orphanage. Some of them have been smoking since they were six years old," Galperina said.

The treatment regimen to stop the disease's progress requires at least 100 kroons ($5.50) per child. But she said the two orphanages didn't have funds to cover even those expenses.

"In five or six years we all could suffer from the tuberculosis infection," she said.

Tatyana Rudachenko, director of the Kohtla-Jarve orphanage, said she was actively using her personal connections to solve the problem. The Swedish Embassy has promised to help.

"Our own budget allocates 450 kroons per month for drugs. We buy delousing chemicals with that as almost every new child comes in with lice," said Rudachenko.

She added that the orphanage didn't have a separate room to accommodate healthy kids.

Kai Vink, a specialist from the anti-tuberculosis department of the Public Health and Social Training Center, says the situation is not so dramatic. "The children are only carriers of the tuberculosis germs. About 10 percent of the germ carriers might become sick with tuberculosis during their lives," said Vink.

She said there were 23 cases of children with TB in Estonia in 1999, and 20 in 2000 as well as in 2001. Only two of those cases have been from the northeastern region, Vink said.