KEY POINTS:
Lynfield College students are being assessed for contact with tuberculosis after a 17-year-old was diagnosed with the disease and admitted to Auckland City Hospital.
The student was confirmed last week as having tuberculosis in the lungs and is receiving treatment in a negative-air-pressure isolation room at the hospital designed for patients with infectious diseases. Medical officer of health Dr Greg Simmons, of the Auckland Regional Public Health Service, said yesterday nurses were at the Auckland school to identify students and teachers who had been in contact with the pupil.
Lynfield College has about 1800 students.
"Mantoux" skin tests would be done on school and home contacts of the 17-year-old, he said.
A positive test result indicates the person has been infected with the bacterium, but only 10 per cent of those infected develop active, infectious disease. The rest have latent TB infection - the bacteria become "walled off" by scar tissue. The disease can flare up at any time in these people when their immunity declines, more commonly in the elderly or those with other diseases like cancer or diabetes.
"If positive, those people would be offered treatment to stop them going on to develop tuberculosis disease," said Dr Simmons. "It's not a very nice disease, but it's one that develops slowly and certainly there are cures."
He said the 17-year-old was "not extremely sick. There are no major concerns in terms of the case".
The Government in 2004 extended TB screening requirements for migrants because of increasing numbers of foreign travellers coming to New Zealand. The Health Ministry says each TB case can infect 10 to 15 people in a year. More than half of New Zealand's 300-400 cases a year are in people born overseas.
Lynfield principal Stephen Bovaird, who wrote to parents on Friday about the TB case and testing at the school, would not answer Herald questions about the school's response.
"I'm not telling you anything, sorry," he said yesterday. "At this stage we are just following the directives of the health authorities and everything is fine."
The matter comes on top of a high-profile disciplinary case. The school was ordered by the High Court to reinstate a pupil it had expelled for misbehaviour and is now appealing in a bid to have the law clarified.
Tuberculosis
* 10 per cent of those who catch the bacteria will develop "active" disease.
* Main symptoms: cough for more than three weeks, possibly blood in spit, weight loss, sweating, especially at night, fever, constant tiredness, breathlessness.
* Spread by coughing and even by singing.
* The bacteria can stay in the air for several hours but it usually takes many hours of close contact with an infectious person to catch the infection.
* 137 cases were reported nationally in the first half of this year.
* Treated with antibiotics.
