Tuberculosis: A threat to the community?

According to Richland Collegiate High School nurse Patricia Brittin, "They don't routinely test school children or K-12 children."  

The U.S. does not use the TB vaccination, because this medicine often complicates the results from other diagnosis tests like the TB skin test, explained Angelique Starr, an administrative assistant for the Richland Health Center for 15 years .  

"The United States and the northern continent eradicated Tuberculosis. But with the population entering the U.S. from other countries, where TB is still an issue, that's where we are seeing the problems," said Starr.

When international students get tested in the U.S. and they come up positive, that doesn't necessarily mean that they're sick. It could be that the skin test recognized the immunization a student received as a child. What it does mean is that they need further testing."

Essentially, an individual goes through chest x-rays and the doctors take samples of saliva. If nothing grows, no problem; but if something does grow, then the person is truly sick.

Then doctors prescribe medicine for you to take over six to nine months, depending on the severity of the infection.

Tuberculosis differs from the typical cold in several ways.

With cold and flu, the germs spread via short term contact or interaction. For example, someone coughing or touching a door handle after a sick person.  Whereas with TB it takes a long term, concentrated exposure.

Thus when someone tests positive, the health professionals start with the student's immediate family.

"Because they're living with them, they're drinking after them, they're exposed to them long term," Starr said.

Another difference between tuberculosis and the average cold includes the amount of complications related to contracting TB. As with AIDS, TB becomes more complicated over time.

If a person with tuberculosis dies, it isn't the TB, but from complications caused by the disease. Complications can also develop with treatment.

Occasionally people will either develop or simply contract the resistant variety of tuberculosis.

In other words, this particular TB strain defies all of the medications available for the disease. In that scenario, the only thing left is isolation.

School officials are directed by the Dallas County Health Department. They are given permission to do this testing on the campus. If there are any problems they contact the DCHD to help troubleshoot.

Starr and Brittin agree that many international students get confused about what exactly a positive skin test means (e.g. whether it is good or bad).

Brittin explains that, "We're not saying that you're positive for TB, it's that your skin test is positive for TB."

In countries such as China that do administer the tuberculosis vaccine, health professionals look for signs that the vaccination is working.

American health professionals look for the disease.

The staffers emphasized two main points, they wanted students, specifically international students and health professionals, to remember.

Starr said that, "once you have a positive TB test, you will always have a positive skin test."

"Be sure to keep all of your records," Brittin added.