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	Clinics : BCG

	Tuberculosis, the facts ...

	Tuberculosis (TB) is a contagious disease. Like the common cold, it spreads through the air. Only people who are sick with TB in their lungs are infectious. When infectious people cough, sneeze, talk or spit, they propel TB germs, known as bacilli, into the air. A person needs only to inhale a small number of these to be infected. Left untreated, each person with active TB disease will infect on average between 10 and 15 people every year. But people infected with TB bacilli will not necessarily become sick with the disease. The immune system "walls off" the TB bacilli which, protected by a thick waxy coat, can lie dormant for years. When someone's immune system is weakened, the chances of becoming sick are greater. Someone in the world is newly infected with TB bacilli every second. Overall, one-third of the world's population is currently infected with the TB bacillus. 5-10% of people who are infected with TB bacilli (but who are not infected with HIV) become sick or infectious at some time during their life. People with HIV and TB infection are much more likely to develop TB.

WHO TB Information & data >>

BCG Immunisation at Dr O'Donnell & Partners

Changes to Surrey BCG (Tuberculosis Immunisation) Arrangements

Following changes made by Surrey PCT on 31 March 2008 we are no longer able to provide NHS BCG vaccination. The Practice will continue to provide private BCG vaccinations for registered and non-registered patients who do not qualify for NHS vaccination or who require it for travel purposes. Please note, this is a chargeable service.

NHS eligibility criteria

1.

Previously unvaccinated children aged one to five years with a parent or grandparent who was born in a country where the annual incidence of TB is 40/100,000 or greater.

2.

All infants (aged 0 to 12 months) living in areas of the UK where the annual incidence of TB is 40/100,000 or greater.

3.

All infants (aged 0 to 12 months) with a parent or grandparent who was born in a country where the annual incidence of TB is 40/100,000 or greater.

4.

Previously unvaccinated tuberculin-negative children aged from six to under sixteen years of age with a parent or grandparent who was born in a country where the annual incidence of TB is 40/100,000 or greater.

5.

Previously unvaccinated tuberculin-negative contacts of cases of respiratory tuberculosis.

6.

Previously unvaccinated, tuberculin-negative new entrants under 16 years of age who were born in or who have lived for a prolonged period (at least three months) in a country with an annual TB incidence of 40/100,000 or greater.

	Related FAQs

	Business travel vaccination >> Holiday travel vaccination >> Immunisation >> Post-natal clinics >>

	Background to BCG Vaccination

	The BCG immunisation programme was introduced in the UK in 1953 and has undergone several changes since in response to changing trends in the epidemiology. The programme was initially targeted at children of school-leaving age (then 14 years), since peak incidence of TB was in young working age adults. In the 1960s, when TB rates in the indigenous population were continuing to decline, rates were shown to be much higher in new immigrants from high prevalence countries and their families. Recommendations were made, therefore, to protect the children of these new entrants, wherever they were born, at the earliest opportunity. As part of this, a selective neonatal BCG immunisation programme was introduced to protect infants born in the UK to parents from high prevalence countries by vaccinating them shortly after birth. By the 1990s, uptake of BCG in schoolchildren aged 10-14 was around 70%, with a further 8% exempt from immunisation as they were already tuberculin- positive. In 2005, following a continued decline in TB rates in the indigenous UK population, the schools programme was stopped. The BCG immunisation programme is now a risk-based programme, the key part being a neonatal programme targeted to protect those children most at risk of exposure to TB, particularly from the more serious childhood forms of the disease.

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