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Boston Latin School student diagnosed with tuberculosis
By adamg on Thu, 06/07/2012 - 3:16pm
A student at Boston Latin School was recently diagnosed with tuberculosis and a small number of students and teachers who had been in close contact with him or her will be tested next week.
Headmaster Lynne Mooney Teta informed students about the case today:
TB is both a curable and preventable disease. TB is not transmitted by brief contact (such as passing in the hall or in the cafeteria) and exposure to a person who is sick does not usually result in infection. The student who has TB is being treated with medicine and will not return to school until it is safe for that student to return.
TB spreads through the air, but many hours of contact with someone who has active TB are usually needed for this to happen. A small number of Boston Latin School students and faculty who fall into this group will be TB tested by the [Boston Public Health Commission] next week. ...
The BPHC is not concerned that anyone else is ill. The testing is a precaution. I know that we are in good hands.
About 60 Boston residents a year are diagnosed with TB, according to BPHC statistics.
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Comments
Thank the anti-Vaccers
This stuff is getting more and more common because of the irrational fears and opinions of a lot of ill informed parents who forgot to take a statistic class in HS/college.
Right now herd immunization is still working, but once it breaks down from their refusal to participate, JR is going to be in much more harm from pathogens than the potential side effects of any vaccine. But by then it might be too late.
There is no vaccine for TB
I think you are thinking of the tetanus vaccine. There's no vaccine for tuberculosis. Schools require TB testing at various intervals, but there is no vaccine for tuberculosis.
Among the diseases making a resurgence due to lack of vaccination are measles, mumps, and whooping cough. Haven't seen any suburban princesses with diphtheria yet, though.
I agree with your logic completely, though, it's just TB has no vaccine yet.
Yup
My bad, glanced, got angry and shouted off against something I misread.
Still, there is a growing major problem with anti-vaccers who are looking for answers from everything from freak accidents, to the growing diagnosis of autism.
Huh? There is no TB vaccine
administered in the US to babies and children unless they are at high risk. TB is rare in US, Canada and the UK. It's more common in developing countries and possibly, the child at Latin School who came down with it is in a higher risk group. But this has nothing to do with people mistrusting vaccinations.
For more info: http://www.cdc.gov/tb/publications/faqs/default.htm
Vaccinations
If vaccines work, and a person is vaccinated, then there is nothing to worry about.
Right. As regards TB,
the vaccines don't always work. Then, sometimes the drug treatments don't always work and you have MDR (multi drug resistant) TB and the docs have to find other medications to prescribe to work around these other strains.
That, too can be very dangerous.
There's some speculation among both people in the medical professions, as well as ordinary, everyday people that, with regards to drug-resistant diseases, in five years or less, we'll be up the creek without a paddle, because there'll be no drugs whatsoever that'll cure them. If that's going to happen, then maybe the best defense against such diseases is a good offense; affective vaccines should be developed for protection against such diseases, to begin with.
I'm in agreement about those crazy anti-vaccine people...they're dangerous, and they should not be given a platform with which to spread their propaganda and whip up ill-informed, uneducated or uptight parents. This coming from one of the biggest free-speech advocates on this planet!