Show us your scar?1

[hercules]

Why have I been told I need to go into my local council offices to show someone my BCG scar for a new teaching post?
I've been told if they cant see the scar I need to go in to hospital to have my BCG redone??

I had it done at school but they said my medical records are not enough.

What if I'm against having it done again? I cant see the scar.

No one did a check on my criminal records for my last teaching job....(not that i have anything!)

hercules, if you're going to be coming into contact with immigrant/ refugee children, you should make sure you are immune. You don't want to catch TB, really, it's nasty! I think most children in India are given the BCG within days of birth, but a lot of countries do not have a vaccination programme, or one that works well at any rate. I've seen a case of TB in a Scottish caucasioan 3 year old in the last few weeks. No-one knows where he got it from, even with extensive contact tracing. He's going to be on antibiotics for months and months.

At school, we had the heaf test before the BCG.

Cases deffo are on the up. A friend of ours was very ill with it about 2 years ago. She was/is an extremely fit, healthy woman in her early 30's with no traceable exposure. She recovered well, but she was very poorly for a time.

The TB (bcg) vaccination is only about 60% effective. Once you've had it, it's very difficult to test for tb (risk have an adverse reaction to test).
I don't think the bcg scars anyway. It all sounds a little odd.

Another good reason not to go back into teaching then....

I never had a heaf test done and consequently no BCG as, iirc, there was a scare at the time over the safety of the BCG so mum wouldn't let us have it done. I've often wondered since whether I ought to get it done but I'm the kind of stubborn person who when confronted with "you have to have it done" would dig my heels in.

weird- the only immunisation scar I have is from the smallpox jab- how would they know it wasn't a bcg?

Soupy...I remember vividly the disgusting nature of the "inflammation" afterwards.

Is it bad? I'm having my haef and BCG done in September. I don't want disgusting and inflammation...whimper.

They're not all bad by any means, Marthamoo. And it didn't hurt so don't worry It was just a nasty scabbed affair that did leave a scar (roundish, about 6mm across) but it's mostly faded now. Not every one of us had reactions like that to it at school.

JimJams, my smalpox scar is a brown one and my bcg one is more like a burn one if that makes sense. No idea if they always scar differently but I wondered how they'd tell which scar was which jab. Utter madness!

I don't have a scar either; never heard havign to have it checked???

I now work in a prison and have to have a Hep B jab. I just started it this week. Been working there since September and it just kept getting forgotton and pushed back. But I was good and went to nurse for first one this week. have anither one in a month, and then another after 6 months, followed by a blood test! No one has ever checked up whether I have had it or not at work though.

I guess that makes me feel a bit better, soupy. I'm not bothered about injections but I can live without inflammation!