TB Case Discovered at Second School in Garden Grove : Disease: Officials plan to test 262 classmates of girl who contracted tuberculosis. Occurrence is deemed less serious than an earlier outbreak at La Quinta High.

County health officials said Wednesday that an active tuberculosis case has been discovered at a second Garden Grove school, prompting them to test more than 260 classmates of a girl whose condition was diagnosed this summer.

Garden Grove High School parents were informed about the situation over the past few weeks in a series of letters from the Orange County Health Care Agency and during a community meeting at the campus last month.

More than 100 students have been tested so far. At least 13 have tested positive, but none have experienced any symptoms of the disease. They will be given drugs designed to kill the bacteria that causes TB. More than 90% of people who test positive never develop symptoms of the disease, officials said.

County officials said this case is not related to an outbreak of tuberculosis at nearby La Quinta High School, which has been a source of controversy for more than two years.

Seventeen La Quinta students have been treated for active TB over the past two years. More than 100 other students and school employees tested positive but have not become ill so far.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control concluded after an investigation that the outbreak began in part because a private physician failed to properly treat and immediately report a La Quinta student who had developed a drug-resistant strain of TB.

Jody Meador, the county’s tuberculosis controller, said the Garden Grove High student who contracted TB has no links with La Quinta High and that she suffers from a different form of the disease.

“This is a completely independent situation,” Meador said.

The girl’s condition was diagnosed in July after she went to a doctor with several telltale tuberculosis symptoms: persistent coughing, night sweats and a low-grade fever.

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The doctor promptly informed health agency and school district officials, who immediately began developing a strategy for testing classmates who came in regular contact with the girl, Meador said.

Tuberculosis is a highly infectious disease that attacks the lungs as well as other parts of the body. It can be transmitted to people who share airspace with the carrier, Meador said.

Within days of being notified of the case, health officials mailed the first of two letters to the homes of 262 students who were enrolled in classes with the girl. Health department nurses also contacted some parents by telephone, said Alan Trudell, a spokesman for the Garden Grove Unified School District.

About 150 students remain untested. Trudell said that some of those students have been on vacation and don’t know about the case, while others have moved out of the area.

Students who have not yet been examined will be allowed to enter school when classes begin this morning. But they are being urged to be tested within two weeks and could eventually be barred from the campus if they refuse, Trudell said.

The school district today plans to hand-deliver letters to returning classmates. An identical letter will be mailed home to their parents this week, Trudell said.

Students can be tested at several locations, including at the district’s Assessment and Registration Center, 9802 Woodbury Road, in Garden Grove.

Meador said it’s impossible to know where the girl contracted tuberculosis. The girl is recovering at home, where she is being isolated until health officials determine that she won’t pass along the bacteria to others, Meador said. It usually takes two to six weeks of treatment before tuberculosis is rendered non-contagious, she said.

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The Garden Grove High case presents “a better public health situation” than the La Quinta High case because it was diagnosed and reported quickly, Meador said.

“This is the way a situation like this is supposed to be handled,” she said.

La Quinta student Debi French, 18, and her family sued the school district and county earlier this month, charging that they failed to warn parents immediately after another student was found to have contagious tuberculosis in 1991.

French’s case was diagnosed in 1993. Doctors were forced to remove part of her lung when drug treatments failed to halt the disease’s spread.