Person at Tokay High diagnosed with TB

Health officials say disease is unlikely to have been spread

A person at Tokay High School has been diagnosed with active tuberculosis, according to San Joaquin County health officials.

The person — due to privacy concerns, officials could not say whether they were a teacher, student or staff member — is under medical care, and there’s no longer a risk students or staff will be exposed.

“(San Joaquin County Public Health Services) is working closely with school officials to proactively investigate and test students and staff who may have been exposed,” Public Health Officer Dr. Alvaro Garza said.

While the person at Tokay had active disease, they’re unlikely to have spread the infection to anyone but family members or close friends, Garza said.

“It requires basically fairly close contact, and fairly extended contact,” he said.

It’s highly unlikely that a student or staff member would have picked up the infection just from passing the patient in the hallways, he said. Those most at risk of catching the illness are those who regularly spent hours at a time with the patient.

Which doesn’t mean it’s impossible — but even someone who was exposed with the infection is unlikely to end up with active tuberculosis disease, Garza said.

San Joaquin County has a population of more than 725,000. Of those, maybe 30,000 people are infected with the bacteria that causes tuberculosis. It’s hard to tell, Garza said, because PHS doesn’t track every case of infection in the county.

People who have caught the infection rarely actually develop into the active disease, and they are not contagious until they do, he said.

“Our program looks for disease, and we generally get about 50 cases of active TB disease a year in the county,” he said.

Erik Sandstrom, Tokay High’s principal, isn’t very worried about an outbreak.

“It’s actually pretty hard to catch it from somebody else,” he said.

That’s what he and Tokay staff discovered in May 2015, when a student was diagnosed with the active disease.

Back then, Public Health ran a clinic for people who were deemed at risk of catching the infection due to their exposure, using skin and blood tests to determine if they’d been infected. People with the infection can be treated with antibiotics, Garza said.

Health officials are taking the same strategy this year, Sandstrom said. Next week, anyone deemed at risk for exposure will be able to come to an oncampus clinic for a TB skin test. They’ll return 48 hours after their test to have the results read.

“It went very well when we did it two years ago,” Sandstrom said. No other students or staff developed the active disease in 2015.

Letters have been sent out by mail to all students’ families, Sandstrom said. They were expected to arrive on Tuesday or Wednesday. Automated phone calls and emails were scheduled to go out on Tuesday afternoon.

Students who were deemed at-risk by PHS were invited in their letter to attend the on-campus clinic.

At 6 p.m. Thursday, Tokay High School will host an informational meeting for students and parents in the school theater. Anyone who wants to learn more about the disease is invited to attend. Public Health staff will be onhand to give a presentation and answer questions.

The important thing to keep in mind is that tuberculosis is not very contagious to begin with, and rarely becomes active disease, Garza said.

“Once you have the active disease ... it’s still fairly straightforward, it just takes longer treatment and more drugs,” he said.

The Tokay case is not one of the drug-resistant strains of the disease, he

added.

Sometimes someone can get a false positive from the skin test, which leads to further testing, Garza said.

Even if a person is confirmed to have the tuberculosis infection, it can take years or even decades for it to develop into active disease, he said.

Garza recommends that anyone hoping to prevent infection maintain a healthy lifestyle. In most cases, immune systems are capable of fighting off the infection and preventing disease, and eating healthy foods, getting enough sleep and exercising can help boost the immune system.

People with a compromised immune system due to a chronic illness, organ transplant or other issue are more susceptible, and should work with their physician to monitor and prevent infection.

Garza also emphasized that people should practice good respiratory hygiene. Cough into your elbow and wash your hands frequently, he said. And get a flu shot, he added. “From prior experience, we’re going to be good — but we’re also going to make sure to check everybody,” Sandstrom said.