Tuberculosis

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Weedygarden

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There is a middle school in Aurora, Colorado, where there has been a tuberculosis exposure. Everyone who works and attends school there has been tested and will be again.

When I was first hired to teach for Denver Public Schools, I had to have a tuberculosis test. Everyone who was hired had to: teachers, office staff, cafeteria staff, custodians. My results came back negative and I have never been tested since. I do know that it is treatable, but it can also be fatal. In my genealogical research from Czech records, I saw that people in the 1800's died of TB.

https://kdvr.com/2019/02/28/all-stu...-fall-semester-to-be-tested-for-tuberculosis/

AURORA, Colo. — All students and staff who were at Aurora Hills Middle School during the fall semester will need to get tested for tuberculosis, health officials said Thursday.

Officials began investigating a potential tuberculosis exposure at the school in January.

Denver Public Health is working with the Tri-County Health Department, Aurora Public Schools and the middle school to test people who were potentially exposed during the fall semester.

Tests from January did not show anyone getting infected. But repeat testing last week of the same people who were exposed show some were infected, but none got sick, officials said.

Because of the new results, testing has been expanded to include all students and staff who were at the school in the fall semester. Testing for the expanded group will begin Monday.

No one has been found to have gotten sick from tuberculosis so there is no ongoing risk for exposure, officials said.
 
I went into a CT scanner room to do some work one day. About half an hour later people in hazmat gear came in to clean. The patient scanned right before I went in tested positive for TB. I was not a happy service engineer. No warning signs or even a locked door, just wide open access. I was tested every year after and always came back negative.
 
"Testing positive" for TB doesn't necessarily mean you have it IMHO.
I tested positive (or so they said) back in the 1980's. They put me on INH for a year.
Over the years, I had specialized TB tests (they can't use the pokey thing on your arm then visual result once you've been on INH) to test again. They said I never had TB...
 
Healthcare workers are tested annually in most states. It is possible to have a positive result without having TB. When they do the Mantoux test (needle just under the skin), a positive test is a lump 10 mm or larger for the average person (some exceptions exist). Unfortunately, people can react to ingredients in the serum and form a lump without a speck of TB in their body. People from overseas who have had BCG injections (vaccine for TB) can have some incredibly large and horrible reactions to the Mantoux. Generally, whenever a person tests positive, there are other tests that can be done nowadays. There is a simple blood test called Quantiferon gold that is a very reliable test for Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB), the pathogen that causes TB. Modern rapid Cepheid testing of sputum can give reliable results in about 3 hours. Of course, a chest x-ray is another good test and is usually ordered when a person tests positive with the skin test.

Another thing to keep in mind is that TB can take a number of forms. Active TB is highly contagious and is spread through the airborne route. In other words, if a person with active TB spent time in a room and then left, and you went into the room an hour after the person left, you could still be exposed because the TB bacteria is so tiny it can remain floating in the air for quite a while.

Latent TB occurs when a person has MTB in his body and tests positive, but has no symptoms other than a positive test result. Latent TB (LTB) is not contagious and people with LTB do not need special isolation or any other precautions. Those people are at risk of developing active TB, though, and so they are often treated with isoniazid (INH), rifampin, or rifapentine.
 

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