La Palma Students, Faculty Tested for Tuberculosis

Orange County public health officials Wednesday administered tuberculosis skin tests to 300 students and faculty members at John F. Kennedy High School who have been in contact with a student recently treated for the disease.

Health officials will return to the campus Friday to examine the skin tests, said Dr. Penny Weismuller, county manager of disease control. A positive skin test does not necessarily mean the person has the disease, only that he or she has been exposed and has developed antibodies. In those cases, further testing is needed, Weismuller said.

The student who developed tuberculosis was diagnosed quickly, treated for two weeks at local hospitals, and released when he was no longer infectious. The student will be allowed to return to school after passing a sputum test, which will determine whether the germ is still active, she said.

Tuberculosis can only be contracted through prolonged exposure, Weismuller said. Members of the infected student’s family had been tested and all were negative, she said.

Only classmates, teachers and others who were involved in extracurricular activities with the infected student were tested, Weismuller said.

The unidentified student had had respiratory symptoms for only about three weeks when his personal physician diagnosed the problem. The student had developed pneumonia and the doctor quickly eliminated other causes before testing for tuberculosis, Weismuller said.

Usually tuberculosis is diagnosed only after chronic illness and lingering cough, she said. “Our goal is to consider TB as a diagnosis after four weeks of cough. . . . This was a really prompt diagnosis and he [the physician] should be commended for it.”

The single case is nowhere close to the tuberculosis outbreak in 1993 at La Quinta High School in Westminster, when 17 cases were diagnosed. In more recent years, other cases have been diagnosed at several high schools and one community college.