Southern Nevada Health District Starts Testing Students, Staff For TB

The Southern Nevada Health District investigated 26 schools in Southern Nevada for tuberculosis exposure.

According to the health department, a person infected with active tuberculosis visited 26 campuses and one training site before they knew they had TB.

"At this stage of the Health District’s investigation no exposures have been identified at eight of the campuses, individual notifications are occurring at 17 of the campuses for people identified as possibly having an exposure, and one broader exposure notification is occurring at Ruthe Deskin Elementary School," the Health Department stated.

Below are the schools the Southern Nevada Health District have investigated:

Schools investigated but no contacts identified at this time:

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, latent TB often has no symptoms, infected people don't feel sick and the TB bacteria can eventually cause the disease. Latent TB means that the germs are essentially "sleeping." People with latent TB are not sick and can't spread the disease to others. However, it's still important to get tested even with latent TB because infected people can develop TB disease if they do not receive treatment for latent TB.

Fox 5 reports that the Southern Nevada Health District will offer testing for those who were exposed from Jan. 30 through Feb. 1 at Ruthe Deskin Elementary School. You must have a valid ID to be tested.

The Clark County School District told KTNV-13 that they're screening and testing to find cases of latent TB due to the hidden signs and symptoms of it.