In a recent report on the respiratory disease tuberculosis (i.e., “TB”), an incident involving an illegal Chinese immigrant with a rare form of tuberculosis sparked concern and legal action in Louisiana. Now approximately 200 students and staff members at a Georgia high school have undergone tuberculosis testing after a possible exposure on campus.
the article then quotes a local public health doc who says that TB is treatable, so hopefully it is not a case of drug resistant TB.
On my medical blog, I have a long discussion of how members of my family has been affected by TB, which we all have been infected but never developed the disease... but the skin test showed prior infection which could reactivate in the future, so we all got treatment to prevent this......
My husband had developed active TB during World War II (and was saved by Streptomycin which had just been discovered to stop the infection).
How serious could cases of undiagnosed Tuberculosis be?
well. in 1970, a worker in the US congress cafeteria was found to have open TB,
:WASHINGTON, Feb. 5 (UPI) —Arrangements were made to day to test members of Congress and about 14,000 Capitol employees for tuberculosis. The action was taken after health officials learned that two Senate restaurant workers died of TB in recent months and that four other active cases of the contagious disease had been found in the Capitol complex.
This incident is another argument against allowing unscreened migration into the USA... Usually if you want to immigrate to the USA, you need to get a Chest X ray (Note: I was required to get a Chest X ray to get a long term visa to live here in the Philippines).
some educational lectures here: First the history of TB, the second on treatment.
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