PUPILS have been offered screening for tuberculosis.

This follows a report from the Health Protection Agency, on behalf of Hartlepool Primary Care Trust (PCT) and Hartlepool Borough Council that said three children from the same family had been stricken with tuberculosis.

Children at Golden Flatts School, in Hartlepool, who were in the same classes as the children, are being offered screening.

But health chiefs yesterday took steps to reassure parents.

The statement released by the Health Protection Agency said the three children had the disease but it added: "It is unlikely that other children in the same classes will have caught it, because it is very difficult to catch, particularly from other children."

Peter Price, director of public health and well-being for the PCT, reinforced the message about risk: "We would like to reassure parents that the risk of their children having caught TB is very small indeed."

The children's mother said only one of her children, a two-year-old, had the disease.

She said: "The older two haven't got it but they're on a course of medicine just in case. It was the baby that caught it, she's on some medicine the same as the other two.

"They reckon that because she's so small no one will catch it off her anyway. She's doing just fine."