Ancient killer thrives in Canary Wharf shadow
The disease is on the rise in London and its germs are mainly found among the underprivileged living alongside affluence
London: In the shadows of some of London's tallest skyscrapers and richest banks lurks a disease borne of the poverty and squalor usually associated with the Victorian era rather than a 21st-century financial capital.
Tuberculosis is staging a comeback in London, where some neighbourhoods suffer infection rates found in African countries in which the disease is endemic. The number of cases surged 50 per cent in the 10 years to 2009, according to a National Health Service agency.
The airborne bacteria has taken root in a population of recent immigrants, addicts and homeless who live close to affluent business districts and may pose a risk for those they rub elbows with.
"You wouldn't expect to see that," said Brian McCloskey, the Health Protection Agency's regional director for London. "TB is one of the biggest public health problems we have."
One hotspot is Tower Hamlets, a borough that draws together Canary Wharf, the home of some of Europe's largest banks, and pockets of poverty that stretch along the Thames' old docks east of the Tower of London and north past Whitechapel, where Jack the Ripper preyed on prostitutes in 1888.
Tuberculosis, transmitted by coughs and sneezes, doesn't just strike the needy.
After a worker at a Canary Wharf bank fell ill in 2010, Julian Surey, a nurse at Tower Hamlets Tuberculosis Service in East London, said he was sent with colleagues to her office to screen 14 of her co-workers, a challenge in an open-space environment where employees share keyboards and telephones.
"They were hot-desking and it was a nightmare," Surey said. "People did get concerned."
Some workers demanded to see private doctors rather than be tested and treated by the state-run NHS, the 37-year-old nurse recalled. One person who sat next to the original patient contracted TB, according to Surey. He declined to identify the bank, as did other nurses.
One sneeze can release up to 40,000 droplets and each one can potentially cause infection. An untreated patient can infect up to 15 others a year, the World Health Organisation estimates.
The condition can remain dormant in the body for decades but spread quickly.
