‘Unmanageable’: Nunavut hamlet sets up satellite centre for TB treatment – APTN News

Apr 12, 2022

Pangnirtung’s community hall is to be turned into a place for people with tuberculosis (TB) to receive treatment for the respiratory disease that continues to disproportionately affect Inuit.

The territory’s Health Department declared a TB outbreak in Pangnirtung, a north Baffin Island community of about 1,500, in November.

Chris Nolan, the territory’s executive director of health for the Baffin region, said there’s been an increase in the community in both active cases and sleeping ones. A person with sleeping TB technically has the disease but has no symptoms.

“We quickly realized we were reaching the capacity of the small health centre,” he said. “It was just becoming unmanageable and really difficult to navigate.”

A spokesman for the department told The Canadian Press he could not share the number of TB cases in Pangnirtung. He said the department would provide an update at a later date, either with the figures or the way it was determined whether to share them.

Read More: https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/tuberculosis-tb-pangnirtung-nunavut-outbreak/