Boston Globe (12.14.03) - Friday, December 19, 2003
Christine MacDonald

Public health doctors and nurses were at the school the next day and have spent several days briefing students and faculty about TB. School officials have sent out letters in English, Spanish, and Portuguese to inform parents of the situation. The case and screening efforts were on the agenda at the Dec. 11 parent council meeting.

Dr. Anita Barry, director of communicable disease control at the Boston Public Health Commission, and her staff were in East Boston last week to perform free TB skin tests on about 150 students and faculty at the school and an after-school program the sick boy attended. Officials will return in three months to conduct another round of tests.

Although most TB cases never become active, the 7th grader's TB had entered the active stage. Boston provides free medication for TB and assigns a nurse to each patient. The city assigned a Vietnamese-speaking nurse to the 7th grader, who is of Vietnamese extraction. None of his family members tested positive.

Barry said 67 people were diagnosed with TB in Boston in 2002, mostly immigrants from countries where it is widespread. City data show Boston had a TB incidence rate of 11.4 people per 100,000 last year, down from 15.8 people in 1998. But Boston residents have more than twice the statewide and national incidence rates, data show.

"On average, we may get a case in the schools every year or every other year," Barry said.
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