MAIL workers were offered TB screening after two staff at a Tyneside sorting office caught the deadly disease.
But bosses and health protection experts sought to play down fears, saying both cases had been dealt with and that there was very little chance of the disease spreading.
The first case involved a man in his 20s, who was off work for several months suffering with the disease but who has since made a full recovery.
A woman in her 50s has been off work for six months with the disease and is thought to have needed lung surgery.
One employee at the site, who asked not to be identified, said that the outbreak of the disease had left people anxious about going to work.
She said: "It is worrying. We are in a close factory environment so the whole place is nervous.
"There have been team briefings to say that there is nothing to worry about but it is frightening.
Tuberculosis is an infectious disease caused by bacteria that attack the lungs and can prove fatal if not treated properly.
It is spread through the air when people cough, sneeze or spit and is common in developing countries.
The worker said that the flow of information to staff from the management had been slow since the two cases.
She said: "It has been very hush-hush and for a long time not everybody knew about it.
"They have been trying to say that it is all gossip, but these cases have been confirmed.
"It has been covered up, but now it is coming out and counselling sessions are going to be offered.
Dr Paul Yeo is a lecturer at Durham University in the school for medicine and health and an expert on infectious diseases.
He said it was unlikely that the disease would have spread from the sorting office on items of mail that had been handled there.
Dr Yeo said: "The likelihood would be low. I couldn't give a figure - it is a possibility, but the chances are very, very low. But it is quite a robust disease."
A spokesman for Royal Mail said: "In recent months, two separate cases of TB have been reported amongst members of staff from Tyneside Mail Centre.
"The cases were unconnected and other staff at the centre were offered testing and advice."
THE Health Protection Agency (HPA) and Gateshead Primary Care Trust are both involved in the investigation into the two cases of tuberculosis.
A spokesman for the HPA said all close contacts of the two cases had now been identified and offered screening for TB as a precautionary measure.
Dr Kirsty Foster, of the HPA, said: "TB does not spread easily and tends to be passed on only after prolonged close contact with an infectious person over several days.
"It is rare for people other than close contacts to catch the infection from someone who is infectious.
"The risk of TB transmission in this setting is extremely low and we do not anticipate that anyone other than these close contacts will need to be screened at this stage."
TUBERCULOSIS is becoming more and more common in the UK, with a number of factors behind the rise in the disease.
Infectious diseases expert Dr Paul Yeo said it was more prevalent than people imagined with "hundreds" of cases being detected in the UK last year.
He said: "It is on the rise in the UK. There are various reasons for this, one of which is immigration and you often find that an outbreak of TB reflects the TB found in a particular individual's country."
The antibiotic treatment for the disease lasts around six to eight months. Dr Yeo said proper treatment usually meant complete recovery from the illness, but said that a premises that had identified the disease should carry out regular screening until clear.
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