Countywide : Mall Guard Found to Have Tuberculosis

A security guard at MainPlace mall in Santa Ana was diagnosed with tuberculosis and his family and closest co-workers are being screened for the disease, county health officials said Thursday.

Sandy Omilianowski, a supervising public health nurse for the County Health Care Agency, said the guard is receiving medical attention from the county after being released from a hospital.

“We will keep him off work until he is no longer contagious,” she said, noting that the patient is taking antibiotics.

Omilianowski said after the hospital reported the TB patient to the county last week, health workers contacted the man’s employer, Universal Protection Service in Orange, to find out who else might be at risk of contracting the contagious disease.

“We are concerned about people he worked with every day,” she said.

Members of the sick man’s family and about six other guards who frequently share an office with him were asked to go to the county clinic for skin tests and chest X-rays.

“We started (the screenings) Monday and don’t have all the results back,” she said.

Omilianowski said there is “very minimal risk” that mall shoppers were exposed to tuberculosis by the infected guard. She said TB is transmitted by a person in a contagious stage who exhales large quantities of bacteria by coughing or speaking in enclosed spaces.

In a large, well-ventilated mall, she said, “germs would probably go to the top of skylights and the sun would kill them.”