Massachusetts High School Student Diagnosed with Tuberculosis

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The students name is not being released for privacy reasons, but 4 staff members as well as a bus driver are suspected to have been in close enough contact with the student to require immediate testing.

School officials, once aware of the diagnosis, sent letters to the homes of all registered students alerting them to the situation. They also included a permission slip for parents to sign which will allow the students that may have come in contact with the infected person to be tested as well.

The school is advising students and parents not to panic, but to observe good hygiene, and refrain from activities such as drinking from the same soda can, or any unnecessary close physical contact.

One student said he was not frightened, but was a lot less "hand shaky" than he had been in the past.

Tuberculosis has plagued the world for centuries. Signs of tubercular damage have been found in Egyptian mummies and in bones dating back at least 5,000 years.

Tuberculosis spreads through airborne droplets when a person with the infection coughs, talks or sneezes. In general, you need prolonged exposure to an infected person before becoming infected yourself. Even then, you may not develop symptoms of the disease. Or, symptoms may not show up until many years later.

TB mainly affects your lungs (pulmonary tuberculosis), and coughing is often the only indication of infection initially. Signs and symptoms of active pulmonary TB include:

A cough lasting three or more weeks that may produce discolored or bloody sputum
Unintended weight loss
Fatigue
Slight fever
Night sweats
Chills
Loss of appetite
Pain with breathing or coughing (pleurisy)

Tuberculosis also can target almost any part of your body, including your joints, bones, urinary tract, central nervous system, muscles, bone marrow and lymphatic system.

Left untreated, tuberculosis can be fatal. With proper care, however, most cases of tuberculosis can be treated, even those resistant to the drugs commonly used against the disease.

Which is good news for the students at Chelsford High.