Letters were sent to parents of the babies offering the tests

Nearly 250 babies who were screened for tuberculosis after a midwife was found to have the disease have all tested negative.

Screening was offered to all babies with whom the midwife had been in contact since January 2002.

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

She was found to have the disease in February and parents of the 246 children were sent letters offering the skin tests in April.

At the time, Mathi Chandrakumar, from the Kent Health Protection Unit, said officials were not expecting any of the tests to be positive because the type of TB was not very infectious.

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

The midwife, was "responding well to treatment", a spokesman for the unit said.