Treatment of two patients recently diagnosed with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis will require the Snohomish Health District to hire one new employee — a nurse — at a cost of $84,000.
The nurse’s salary is the single biggest expense in a $140,000 budget approved for treatment of the two patients over the next 12 months.
The patients are the first in Snohomish County to be diagnosed with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, more serious than typical tuberculosis. Cases of this disease in Washington were first reported in 2008.
Health officials had warned it was just a matter of time before someone living in Snohomish County was diagnosed with the disease.
The health district hopes to hire the nurse by the end of June, joining a team that helps administer drugs to the two patients twice a day every day and monitors their health status, said Tim McDonald, communicable disease director for the public health agency.
Medication costs for the patients are expected to hit $40,000 a year. The patients have to take four or more medications daily for 18 to 24 months.
Living expenses, such as housing and food, are estimated to cost $16,000 over the next year.
The public health agency helps with housing and food costs because the patients generally are restricted to their homes to prevent spread of the disease. If they must leave the house, they have to wear medical masks. These restrictions could continue for months until their health improves.
Earlier this month, health district officials said that two people living in Snohomish County had been diagnosed with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis.
Medications used to treat the more common type of tuberculosis are not potent enough to fend off the infection from the multidrug-resistant type. The specialized antibiotics needed to treat the tougher-to-treat tuberculosis infections are far more expensive than those needed to treat patients with more typical tuberculosis.
It’s critical that patients infected with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis take their medications absolutely as prescribed, health officials say. If they don’t, they could die from the disease or spread it to others.
The multidrug-resistant tuberculosis cases in Snohomish County are among five such cases reported so far this year in Washington. Two cases also have been reported in King County and one from Whatcom County, according to the state Department of Health.
The two Snohomish County patients must be checked on twice a day, seven days a week, McDonald said. Each appointment takes about two hours.
“The patient is quite sick … so you need to do a significant medical evaluation and assessment” every time medications are administered, he said.
It could take up to two years for one of the patients to be cured, McDonald said, and the second patient could heal slightly quicker.
Health district staff donated a television and laptop computer to the patients to help keep them entertained while they recover, McDonald said. The health district also is trying to get a donation of a high-speed Internet connection for the patients.
Citing privacy concerns and the stigma associated with the disease, health officials have declined to give any other information about the patients, such as where they live, and whether they are men or women. However, they did say that the two patients do not know each other.
The health district continues to investigate contacts of the two patients to see if anyone else has been infected with this more serious type of tuberculosis.
Many people exposed to tuberculosis do not become infected, and only a fraction of the people who are infected have an active case of the disease.
Those who are infected have about a 1-in-10 lifetime risk of developing active tuberculosis.
Tuberculosis is a bacterial infection of the lungs that can spread to other parts of the body. If left untreated, it destroys lung tissue, but generally it progresses slowly.
Symptoms include weight loss, night sweats and coughing.
Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486 or salyer@heraldnet.com
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