Steve Kent says changes coming to how disease outbreaks are handled

Health Minister Steve Kent says the province willlook to change the way it shares informationabout disease outbreaks, since CBC News revealedthat health officials knew about a tuberculosis outbreak in Labrador months before going public.

• CBC Investigates: Nain TB outbreak began months before public disclosure
• Randy Edmunds: Nain TB disclosure `just not acceptable`

"I think we need more formalized guidelines on when disclosure should happen, and how it should happen in the public health system, and I'm directing my officials to take those steps, " Kent said on The Labrador Morning Show.

A CBC investigation this week showed that health officials described the Nain situation internally as an "outbreak" in early February, more than three months before that information was revealed to the public, at the request of CBC.

Kent defended public health officials' decision to keep information limited to direct contact with community groupsand people who may have been exposed to the virus.

Public disclosure

"There was communication taking place all along. and the process worked as it should," Kent said.

"There's a lot of things to consider when taking into account the need for public disclosure. We look at the degree of infectiousness, the degree of risk of exposure, the need to consider stigmatization. So public communication is necessary if there are people who are not aware they are at risk."

In mid-May, there were 14 cases of tuberculosis in Nain, with a total of 16 reported in the Labrador-Grenfell Health region.

The number in Nain has now jumped to 23 for the past year. There have been no cases diagnosed since August.