3 under TB quarantine at Snow
But officials say there are no confirmed cases
Until doctors can examine chest X-rays on those three students, it is jumping the gun to begin talking about a TB outbreak, officials said Saturday.
"At this point we do not have any confirmed TB, period. We have nothing with confirmed tuberculosis," said Bruce Costa, director of the Central Utah Public Health Department.
Last week, the department performed skin tests on 310 people, mostly students, who had come into contact with a former student from Taiwan who had been diagnosed with a case of active tuberculosis.
Of those, 77 came back positive, though Costa said that could mislead people into thinking the situation is worse than it is. "When people hear 'positive' they all of a sudden think of contagious. 'Suspect' is probably a better way to put it to keep people calm," he said.
Snow College spokesman Greg Dart said the skin test only gives an indication of possible TB, and test results that come back suspect could be due to certain types of TB vaccinations given in other countries, the latent (non-contagious) form of the disease, or could simply be false positives.
Nevertheless, the result prompted the health department to perform chest X-rays on all 77. Out of those, four gave cause for concern. Those three people — two students and one person identified only as a Snow College employee — were put under quarantine as a precautionary measure.
Still, nothing is confirmed, both Dart and Costa emphasized.
The three people under quarantine, Costa said, "may now have confirmed TB, but we still have to double-check those. They show signs of TB, but we don't know for sure until the doctors and others look at those chest X-rays and see if they really have TB, or if they have other respiratory problems."
Costa said that of the two students, only one showed outward symptoms consistent with TB, like coughing, but "that could be due to a cold or pneumonia. We haven't confirmed that yet. It could be attributed to other things."
In addition to the chest X-rays, health officials are investigating how much and how close was the contact the students had with the original TB carrier, who left the college in December, Costa said.
He said, "I think by Monday we'll have more answers to say one way or the other, especially on these four particular individuals."
Also on Monday, the health department will continue offering initial skin tests for people identified by the college as having had contact with the original TB case, and for people who are concerned who wish to volunteer for testing.
The tests will be free of charge and administered from 3-5 p.m. at the Snow College Noyes Administration Building.
Dart said that should other active cases of TB be identified, further steps to identify and contain the disease would be taken at the direction of the health department.
E-mail: john@sanpetemessenger.com
Recent comments
Anyone who is looking for more information can call 435-283-7154...
Contact at the school | Jan. 28, 2008 at 10:31 p.m.
My son is a student at Snow who has other health conditions that...
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This is a campus wide email that has been sent out.. if you want...
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