TB testing ordered at Farrington

More than 100 students and staff at Farrington High School should be tested for tuberculosis because they were in the same classroom as a student diagnosed with the contagious disease in March, the state Department of Health said yesterday.

2 MEETINGS The state Department of Health will give parents and student guardians more information about a tuberculosis case at Farrington High School in meetings today from 6 to 7 and from 7 to 8 p.m. in the school's library conference room.

This marks the third TB case at an Oahu public school in eight months, but Health Department spokeswoman Janice Okubo said they appear to be unrelated.

The Health Department wants to screen 106 students and five staff members at Farrington for TB. Teachers and students are required to be checked for the bacterial disease, but it is possible that someone carrying latent TB can test negative but develop symptoms later, health officials say.

The sick Farrington High student originally had a negative TB exam after being hospitalized in January, Okubo said. Additional testing, however, revealed the student had active TB, she said.

The student has not been at the campus since classes resumed after the winter break, Okubo said.

School administrators mailed letters last Tuesday to inform parents and guardians of students about the TB case and ask them to sign a consent form agreeing to the free skin TB tests at the school next Tuesday.

Tuberculosis, which spreads through the air and usually attacks the lungs, can be fatal if not treated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Symptoms can include weakness, weight loss, fever, night sweats, coughing and chest pain. People afflicted with TB are no longer contagious once treatment begins.

Okubo ruled out any link between the Farrington incident and TB cases at Kahuku High in February and Roosevelt High School in October, which was the first such case at a Hawaii public school in at least eight years.

"It is unusual for us to have investigations in schools, but we haven't seen anything related or connecting them in any way," she said. "Each of these cases appears to be unique and unrelated to other factors."

At Kahuku High the Health Department identified 99 students and seven staff who were possibly exposed to TB from a teacher who tested positive on Jan. 18. And 163 students and staff at Roosevelt were sought for TB screening after a student fell ill with the disease in October.

No additional TB cases have developed from those tests, Okubo said, though about a dozen Kahuku students and two Roosevelt students still need to be tested. One Roosevelt student has been restricted from classes until testing is completed.

Tuberculosis rates have been declining in Hawaii since 1992, but the state continues to have one of the nation's highest case rates in the country.