Health Dept. Finds No Active Cases of TB Here
Thursday, February 1, 2007
No active cases of tuberculosis have been identified in an investigation that health officials conducted as the result of the death of a Tyson worker on Jan. 4.
Lougene Marsh, director of the Flint Hills Community Health Center, said this morning that 46 people have been tested for TB.
“And that includes all of the close personal contacts, EMTs and hospital personnel that were around the individual, and three individuals from our own staff that had treated him in earlier times when he may have been asymptomatic,” Marsh said.
The worker, whose name has not been released, reportedly went to the Tyson health center and complained of being injured as he worked on the slaughter side of the plant. He was taken by ambulance to Newman Regional Health, where he died.
Tests on close contacts of the man began last month, when the preliminary coroner’s report identified active tuberculosis as related to the man’s death. The final coroner’s report has not yet been received.
Skin tests will be repeated on those people within the next eight to 10 weeks.
“Then for individuals that maybe have had a positive skin test but a negative chest X-ray, we’ll be continuing to follow those individuals every three months, just to make sure they have no symptoms,” Marsh said.
Marsh said that the strain of tuberculosis identified as being related to the death of the Tyson worker is treatable.
“It was not the drug-resistant variety,” Marsh said. “There’s been some worldwide concern about that” new strain of TB.
“We still have the latent tuberculosis, where people still have it in their system,” she said.
Those with latent tuberculosis cannot pass the infection on to others. TB is contagious only in its active form and only through airborne contact, such as through sneezes and coughing.
However, Marsh has said that it is important that people diagnosed with latent TB complete the full daily regime of treatment to prevent the case from turning active.
TB can lodge in the kidneys and other parts of the body, but 85 percent of the cases settle in the lungs. TB in other parts of the body does not spread through social and work-related contact, health officials stated earlier, because the bacteria does not become airborne.
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food4thought (anonymous) says...
WOW, this person(still unknown) only had contact with 46 people? Beef has 2,400 employees(per the paper) and lets say at any given time there is 150 people at Wal-Mart, 20 at the post office, 30 in a grocery store, 20 in any restaurant and this person could have been in contact with hundreds of people and our great health dept. tested 46 people and give us the all clear? I don't know about the rest of you but I feel comforted!
February 1, 2007 at 4:18 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
jenna414 (anonymous) says...
Okay, if you know how TB is spread then you should be comforted.
February 1, 2007 at 6:39 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
4Jayhawks (anonymous) says...
After following the previous blog on this subject and learning just how TB is spread (re; Methusla's research) I feel no comfort at all.
If TB is only spread to people who have close contact with someone who has an active case like the health dept. keeps saying then why do they require someone with an acitve case to wear a face mask when out in public?
February 1, 2007 at 8:57 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
jenna414 (anonymous) says...
Active TB can be spread. The 46 people that were tested either showed up negative or positive for TB. IF they did test positive, it still doesn't mean that they are infectous.
February 2, 2007 at 3:47 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
jenna414 (anonymous) says...
Out of those 46 people they were NOT infectous, per the Health Department, so even if they tested positve they are spreading the disease to others. Maybe you should refer back to Methusla's research as you had in the previous posting. When did Methusla become "all knowing"?
February 2, 2007 at 3:55 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )