19 New Cases of TB Found in Students at Santa Ana School

Skin testing of 146 students and staff at Sierra Intermediate School, prompted by the discovery of a classmate with symptoms of active tuberculosis, has found 19 students with previously undiagnosed TB infections, officials reported Wednesday.

An additional eight students and staff were found positive for the disease who had also tested positive in the past, the officials said.

Penny Weismuller, the Orange County Health Care Agency’s manager of disease control, said all students and staff with positive skin tests will receive chest X-rays later this week at the school to help determine if they have active cases of tuberculosis. Sputum cultures would have to be taken for a definitive diagnosis, she said.

While the county tested only those students and faculty who came in contact with an ill 12-year-old girl at the school, Weismuller said the results do not indicate that the girl’s disease is highly contagious.

“At this point (the 19 positive cases) appear to be just a part of the rate of infection that we would expect in the school,” Weismuller said.

Weismuller said a large portion of the student body at Sierra Intermediate is Latino, an ethnic group that tends to have a significant incidence of tuberculosis because of immigration from countries where the disease is endemic.