CHARLEROI, Pennsylvania ‒ The superintendent of the Charleroi Area School District said that a high school student in Washington County, Pennsylvania, who was just diagnosed with tuberculosis went to school on Monday without a doctor’s note.
When school staff found out that the teen, who had been diagnosed a few weeks before, had come back without a doctor’s permission, they “immediately isolated the student and sent them home,” Superintendent Ed Zelich wrote in a Facebook post. The message went on to say that school staff “thoroughly cleaned” the areas where the student had been.
Zelich said that he, the district leaders, and the school nurses had talked to people from the Pennsylvania Department of Health earlier Monday about what happened.
“After looking into it, they confirmed that our district does not need to take any public health action at this time,” he wrote. “They promised that they would let us know right away if anything changes or if more public health measures are needed.”
What does tuberculosis mean?
USA TODAY stated in October that tuberculosis is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that the disease is spread by germs from people who already have it.
The disease mostly affects the lungs, but it can also happen in the brain, spine, and kidneys. It can make different body parts hurt at the same time. USA TODAY reported that people who have TB don’t always get sick and that symptoms can show up slowly over months.
Tuberculosis used to be a common lung disease in the U.S., and it caused a lot of deaths every year. In the last 100 years, infections and deaths have gone down a lot because of coordinated public health measures to find and treat diseases early.
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