With the bulk of the investigation complete, about 120 students and staff at Longmont High School have tested positive for latent tuberculosis infection, according to public-health officials.
The high rate of infection has surprised public-health officials.
“This is an unusual percentage, but it’s not unheard of,” said Dr. Randall Reves, director of the Denver Metro Tuberculosis Clinic, based at Denver Health Medical Center.
After a student was diagnosed with active TB in December, everyone in that student’s classes was tested. When that testing turned up an unexpectedly high rate of latent infection — about 40 percent of those who shared a classroom with the student tested positive — testing was expanded to the entire school, Reves said.
About 1,200 students attend Longmont High. The school employs about 120 staff.
Of those who have tested positive, about 100 have undergone X-rays and about 80 have started a course of antibiotic treatment aimed at preventing the latent infection from becoming active, Reves said.
“We have not found any other active cases — that’s been very reassuring,” Reves said.
The student originally diagnosed with active TB is recovering and “has returned to normal activities,” Reves said. That student has not been identified.
Public-health officials still are tracking a handful of people who attended the high school last fall and were potentially exposed, but have since left the St. Vrain Valley School District, Reves said.
When all the testing is completed, various public-health organizations, including Denver Health and the Boulder County Health Department, will have spent more than $100,000, Reves said. That covers just the testing itself, not the staff time invested.
Once a leading cause of death in this country, TB has been rare in the U.S. in recent decades. Last year, there were just over 11,000 cases in the U.S., according to experts at National Jewish Health, one of the nation’s leading treatment centers for drug-resistant TB.
Karen Augé: 303-954-1733 or kauge@denverpost.com
