Monday 13 January 2014

Innoculations and TB


To gain a visa to live, study and work in South Africa we were required to have chest x rays to ensure we were free from TB.

Three years on and the kids have left South Africa, they didn’t need to have any checks to return to the UK and this puzzles me.

Surely living in South Africa we are more prone to TB than we were living in the UK.

Should the kids have been inoculated when they were here? Should we have had them also?

What jabs have the boys missed in the UK? Here there is no health visitor and if there is an equivalent ‘Red Book’ no one has ever mentioned it.

 Does anyone else have a similar experience?

8 comments:

  1. We seemed to have to have endless innoculations to get Green Cards in the US. Husband tested positive for TB (probably because he'd been innoculated against it aged 13), so had to have a chest x-ray. Going from one country's health system to another is a nightmare. I got caught between two systems on various occasions. All very stressful - you have my sympathy.

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    1. Strange how the kids and ourselves had to be tested to check we were TB free to move to South Africa, yet noone appears to care if we take TB back to the UK with us

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  2. That's odd isn't it - I wonder if you registered with a GP for the first time they would check kids are up to date? I had a TB jab at school when I was about 13 and again when I started working for the NHS

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    1. When I asked our GP I was advised to go to the travel clinic and tell them what jabs I wanted us to have, that was the whole point, how am I supposed to know what we need/is recommended other than the UK options

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  3. oh and it took me 8 f*cking goes to read the f*cking captcha thing!!

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  4. I believe that they only give TB jabs in 'high risk' areas in the UK now. I don't think they give it in schools as standard like they used to when I was at school. In London, babies in high risk areas are offered it at birth. Both my boys had it in the hospital before they were discharged.

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  5. South Africa is a high risk area, but no one required the boys to be screened prior to them moving back to the UK

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