Letters were sent to parents of the babies on Tuesday

Tuberculosis screening is being offered to 246 babies after a midwife contracted the disease.

The community midwife worked in the Medway area and also at the Medway Maritime Hospital in Kent.

Now parents of all babies who the woman has been in contact with since January 2002 will be given the option of having a test.

Letters were sent to the families on Tuesday with the tests available from next week.

Dr Mathi Chandrakumar, from the Kent Health Protection Unit said: "It involves a skin test and this skin test will be read a week later and depending on the reaction we will be offering them BCG vaccinations.

TB symptoms Lasting cough Tiredness Night sweats Loss of appetite Coughing up blood

"We identified all the babies this midwife has been involved in delivering or providing after care.

"We looked over the last year from January 2002 and we identified 246 who need screening.

"We are not expecting any one of them to turn positive for the simple reason that this type of TB of the lung, which this particular infected care worker has, is very low infectivity."

Dr Chandrakumar said all health care workers are screened when they are first taken on, but this would not be of use if a disease was contracted during employment.