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(NaturalNews) A doctor-in-training unknowingly exposed hundreds of patients, including children and infants, to tuberculosis (TB), the Chicago Public Health Department has announced.

A 26-year-old pediatric resident from Northwestern University has been diagnosed with active tuberculosis, raising the possibility that she might have infected patients at the three hospitals where she had worked between November and March -- Northwestern, Children's Memorial and Evanston.

"She did have some time when she was contagious at those three institutions," said the health department's chief medical officer, Susan Gerber. "We are researching the different days and different places that she has been during the time that she would have been contagious."

TB is a highly contagious bacterial disease that can be fatal if left untreated. People may carry the bacteria for long periods of time without developing the active form of the disease and becoming contagious. Symptoms of active infection include coughing, chills, fever, night sweats and weight loss.

A person with an active infection can pass the disease to others simply by coughing near them or having a conversation with them. According to infectious disease specialist Carlos Perez-Valdez of the National Jewish Hospital in Denver, however, unless the doctor was actually coughing while in the same room as patients, "there would be a very low risk" of infecting them.

While infected with TB, the resident worked with at least 300 adult co-workers and 150 children and infant patients -- including 17 newborns -- at Children's Memorial Hospital. She is also believed to have exposed 80 patients at the Evanston Hospital infant care unit.

It generally takes extended contact to infect another person with TB, but children, infants and pregnant women are considered especially vulnerable to the disease.

The doctor's disease appears to be responding well to treatment, suggesting that it is not a drug-resistant strain.

Drug-resistant tuberculosis is considered a major emerging global public health threat.

Sources for this story include: www.chicagotribune.com.

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