Dawn Ostrem
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Jun 15/01) - Thirteen dollars worth of drugs might have spared Effie Blake from a bout with tuberculosis, an expert on the disease testified at a coroner's inquest in Inuvik.
Dr. Anne Fanning said that when Blake tested positive for dormant TB 40 years ago she did not receive what is now a standard nine-month dose of medication, worth about $13.
Fanning said that scarring found on Blake's lungs may have been the result of an earlier bout with TB, which increased her susceptibility to the disease.
"It is a disease. If you forget about it, that will bite you from behind," Fanning told the jury, which was deliberating on recommendations Thursday night.
Jurors heard testimony from 11 witnesses during the three-day inquiry into the death of the Fort McPherson school teacher.
Blake, 57, died last July. She spent five weeks in hospital in Inuvik, but was not diagnosed with TB until transferred to Stanton Regional Hospital. She was then flown to Edmonton for treatment and died there.
By the time she got to Edmonton, she was bleeding from the bowel and suffering from blood clotting and liver complications, possibly from antibiotics she received to combat what one doctor thought was pneumonia.
Dr. Jason Waechter, who cared for Blake in Inuvik, testified that there was a slight improvement when antibiotics were initially administered so did not order a sputum test for TB.
Fanning, an international expert on TB, said the easiest way to combat the disease is perform a sputum test on anyone who has a cough that persists longer than two weeks.
Dr. Andre Corriveau, chief medical officer for the NWT, told the inquest that all communities will have updated information on all residents who have been tested for TB.
The project started five years ago after a TB outbreak, but was not completed in Fort McPherson when Blake fell ill.
Because Blake went undiagnosed, more than 1,300 persons came in contact with her in Fort McPherson and Inuvik.
