Posted on 11/04/2003 6:36:30 PM PST by Dan from Michigan
Thumb schools report 34 tuberculosis infections
The Associated Press
11/4/2003, 3:58 p.m. ET
SEBEWAING, Mich. (AP) — Thirty children and four teachers in Michigan's Thumb have tested positive for tuberculosis, a potentially deadly lung disease that now is readily treated with antibiotics.
The 34 people who tested positive for exposure to tuberculosis will take medicine for up to one year. So far, none of them have active lung infections that might spread to others, officials say.
"A positive TB skin test means you've acquired the germ in your body, but it does not necessarily mean you have the active disease," Gretchen M. Tenbusch, health officer for the Tuscola and Huron county health departments, told The Bay City Times.
TB is spread in airborne droplets produced by coughing and sneezing by a person with tuberculosis of the lungs or throat.
Workers from the Tuscola and Huron county health departments offered the skin tests to staff members and students after a fifth-grade teacher and eighth-grade student came down with the disease.
The teacher and student are recovering at home. The teacher spent some time in a hospital.
Health workers have tested 407 students and employees in the school district during the past week.
Active pulmonary tuberculosis is verified by presence of lesions or nodules in the lungs seen in a chest X-ray, and by the presence of tuberculosis bacteria in a person's sputum.
People with TB disease are most likely to spread it to people they spend time with every day, including family members, friends, and co-workers, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Web site.
Studies show that only 5 percent of the people who have a positive skin test for the bacteria develop TB disease within a year, Tenbusch said. However 15 percent more could have their immune systems stressed or compromised to the point where they could develop the disease within a year.
"When we see a positive reading for TB on a skin test, we don't know if that person will fall into that group of 80 people out of 100 who fight off the disease, or whether that person will fall into the group of 20," Tenbusch said. "So we ... treat people with a medication."
The 34 students and staff members who tested positive for the disease will begin taking an anti-tuberculosis drug known as INH or isoniazid.
Of the those who tested positive for the tuberculosis germ, results of chest X-rays have been received for about 11, Tenbusch said. None of the X-rays have shown an active case of TB so far, she said.
"Prior to the 1940s, the disease was fatal, but with the advent of medication in the 1940s, it's rarely fatal," Tenbusch said.
What they do not mention in this article is that TB is becoming resistant to all but the strongest of antibiotics. It isn't going to be too many years (5? 10?) until TB is fully resistant to all conventional antibiotic medicines. Over prescription by doctors & incorrect use by patients is going to result in a health care crisis the likes of which we haven't seen since penicillin was discovered. Not just TB - but all common bacterial infections will become much more serious.
</doom & gloom>
FMCDH
Not true-- I'm immune-- my mother was almost killed by TB as a girl, so I picked up the antibodies in utero.
Was nice getting kicked out of school for a few days every year, too.
If they read the disclaimers and possible side effects of that medication they might decide not to take it.
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