Officials Find No Sign of TB Outbreak at School

After conducting extensive skin testing and some physical exams, Orange County health officials are convinced that no one at Orange High School contracted tuberculosis from a teenager who was diagnosed with the disease earlier this month.

“There is no outbreak of tuberculosis and no spread at the school,” said Penny Weismuller, manager of disease control for the county Health Care Agency.

Skin testing of nearly 400 students and staff--completed this week--turned up 39 people who tested positive, indicating exposure at some time in their lives to tuberculosis, she said. But none of those has symptoms and, because the first student had such a low-level infection, officials believe the disease was caught before it could spread.