Epidemiology of a tuberculosis outbreak in a South Carolina junior high school.
- 1 April 1985
- journal article
- Published by American Public Health Association in American Journal of Public Health
- Vol. 75 (4), 361-365
- https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.75.4.361
Abstract
A 13-year-old, female, seventh-grade student (the index patient) was found to have smear-positive, cavitary, pulmonary tuberculosis. Epidemiologic and contact investigation, involving skin testing over 900 people, revealed a 40 per cent tuberculin reactor rate for persons in the junior high school she attended compared to a 2 per cent rate for control schools. Repeat skin testing of initial non-reactors identified an additional 3 per cent of infected school children. School teachers showed a seven-fold increase in the prevalence of positive skin-test reactions following the outbreak. Tuberculin-reactor rates for seventh graders were substantially higher than for eighth graders. The more classes shared with the index patient, the higher the probability of being a reactor. Among students who shared no classes with the index patient, the highest rates of tuberculin reactions were found for those who had entered a classroom immediately after the index patient had left it. Evidence of transmission on the school bus and in the church choir was also suggested. Six secondary cases (three pulmonary) resulted from the outbreak. Identical phage types from the index and secondary patients suggest who had left school during the term proved useful in determining when transmission began. The index case was found to be a missed contact of a previously identified case of tuberculosis. Since household contacts are at high risk for developing active disease, there is a need for meticulous and complete investigation and preventive therapy for all such persons, especially children.Keywords
This publication has 16 references indexed in Scilit:
- BOOSTER PHENOMENON IN SERIAL TUBERCULIN TESTINGPublished by Elsevier BV ,1979
- Tuberculosis: The New Challenge to the Practicing ClinicianChest, 1975
- Tuberculosis Outbreak in an Alabama High SchoolJAMA, 1971
- Tuberculosis outbreak in an Alabama High SchoolPublished by American Medical Association (AMA) ,1971
- The Epidemiology of Tuberculosis Infection in a Closed EnvironmentArchives of environmental health, 1968
- Epidemiology of Primary Tuberculosis in an Industrial SchoolNew England Journal of Medicine, 1965
- What Price Apathy—A School Epidemic of TuberculosisDiseases of the Chest, 1963
- EPIDEMIC OF TUBERCULOSIS IN A HIGH SCHOOLJAMA, 1952
- Pulmonary Tuberculosis Resulting from Extra-Familial ContactsAmerican Journal of Public Health and the Nations Health, 1942
- How Tuberculosis Spreads in a Rural CommunityAmerican Journal of Public Health and the Nations Health, 1936