About 170 students at Wilson High School will be tested for tuberculosis because someone on the campus was diagnosed with the
disease, a Long Beach Unified School District official said today.
Letters will go out to parents and guardians next week letting them know the tests will be given in early April by the Long Beach Health Department, said Robert Tagorda, assistant to Superintendent Christopher J. Steinhauser.
He said there are more than 5,000 students, faculty and staff on the Wilson campus, but the tests will involve a relatively small group that may have come in contact with the individual, whose name was not released.
The need for such testing is "not that regular, but because this is a serious situation, we deal with it appropriately and work with the public
health and safety department as a precaution," Tagorda said.
Similar TB tests were conducted in September for 400 people at Wilson, and under similar circumstances, but no active cases were found. Tagorda said the two exposures are unrelated.
Long Beach Health Officer Dr. Helene Calvet told LBReport.com some people tested in September were found to have been exposed to TB in the past, but it is still unclear whether that resulted in the latest incident.
