From the Washington Post:
At least 1,400 students, staff at Lee High should get TB tests, health officials sayLearn more about Robert E. Lee High School HERE. According to the school profile:
By T. Rees Shapiro, Published: July 22
Fairfax County health officials have suggested that at least 1,400 more faculty, staff and students at Lee High School in Springfield get tested for tuberculosis after more people have been found to be infected with the disease, Fairfax Health Department officials said Monday.
The tuberculosis investigation at Lee traces back to three active cases discovered there last school year. TB, as the disease is known, is a bacterial germ that attacks the lungs and can be deadly if not treated quickly.
Fairfax County Health Director Gloria Addo-Ayensu said the investigation had determined through skin tests that more people at Lee High have latent TB infections, a noncontagious form of the disease. She declined to say how many people have latent infections, but school officials estimated the total number is between 15 and 25.
[...]
Addo-Ayensu said that those who were tested were split into two categories: those who were born in the United States and those who were born in foreign countries. About 1 percent of native U.S. residents would normally have the latent infection at any one time.
Of those who have been screened in Fairfax, she said, about 5 percent of those born in the United States had a positive test for the latent infection, a rate that “was significantly higher than you would have expected.”
The Health Department would not disclose the exact rate of infection for those tested who were born outside the United States....
Lee High School has served the Springfield community since it opened in 1958. Like many schools in Fairfax County, Lee reflects the increasing diversity of its student body. Students come from 42 countries and speak more than 34 languages....Wikipedia has additional information HERE.
As a local, I know that this particular high school is not one the schools to which teachers typically avoid getting assigned.
It seems to me that the law of unintended consequences has come into play in this recent TB problem — possibly in a way that endangers many lives.
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| Robert E. Lee High School |
Meanwhile, in California: "CA Park Campgrounds Closed After Officials Find Bubonic Plague in Squirrel."
I'm inclined to believe that this infection [JEEPERS! I thought TB was a thing of the past! Hadn't heard anyone speak of it since I was kid hundreds of years ago ;-] anyway, I'm inclined to believe it has arrived through Asian-African sources more than via our friends South of the Border.
ReplyDeleteSo many RWA's (Rich White Americans) have homes in Mexico now that if living in close proximity to the natives there were a health hazard, we would have heard about it long before this. I am acquainted with a few of these people, and every one of them has nothing but praise for Mexicans.
Asia and Africa are the likely culprits -- and the threat of "Multiculturalism," itself, which is a grave danger to what-used-to-be The American Way of Life in more ways than one.
ALSO, it occurs to me that with the disappearance of virtually all restraints on licentious sexual behavior that not only "TB," but all SORTS of infectious diseases are now sexually transmitted.
I have read in several sources that it's not at all unusual for our dear little boys and girls to have slept with several HUNDRED others, whose names they may never have bothered to learn, before they reach the age of twenty. Apparently, children are starting to have sex before the onset of puberty -- often with adults.
I'll never forget one little girl of 13 or 14 who blithely said -- on a nationally-syndicated TV talk show -- "Sex sucks, but you got to do it, or no one will ever ask you out."
Isn't that lovely?
What else could we expect in a nation saturated with pornography and a militant New Ethic insinuated into Wstern Civilization's bloodstream by Bela Kuhn, Theo Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Max Horkheimer, and George Lukacs and others of The Frankfurt School and their benighted disciples that positively encourages drug abuse, promiscuity, homosexuality, bisexuality, group sex, beastiality, etc. while simultaneously telling us that men are such vile, innately predatory creatures that an intelligent mother should not dare to leave her husband alone with his OWN children, because ... well you know.
We must remember that one of the primary aims of Marxism is the destruction of the family.
Are we screwed up or WHAT?
So what's next -- a resurgence of Bubonic Plague aka The Black Death?
FT,
DeleteRecent data from the CDC:
...Geographically, the distribution of TB cases is heterogeneous. Although all states and the District of Columbia reported cases of TB in their jurisdictions, four states (California, Texas, New York, and Florida) reported half of all TB cases in the United States. These four states have less than one third of the U.S. population. Rates of TB were highest in Alaska (9.0 per 100,000 population) and Hawaii (8.4 per 100,000), which combined have <1% of the U.S. population. Additionally, 17 states had higher rates of TB in 2012 than in 2011. At the state level, the distribution of TB by county also is heterogeneous.
TB persists in specific populations. In 2012, foreign-born persons and racial/ethnic minorities continued to be affected disproportionately. Although the numbers and rates of TB among foreign-born persons in the United States decreased, they did so at a lower rate than for U.S.-born persons. Asians continued to be the racial/ethnic group most represented among new TB cases. Initiatives that promote further TB awareness, testing, and treatment of latent infection and TB disease among foreign-born persons and racial/ethnic minorities will be critical for future TB elimination efforts....
More at the above link.
HERE is a country-by-country report from 2011.
It used to be that teachers routinely were required to have TB tests. As far as I know, that isn't the case any longer. However, back in 1996, I had a student from the Philippines with an active case of TB in my class in a private school; the parents told us, and all of had tests. Now, however, families typically do not inform the schools!
Hope you don't have a lot of Russians.
ReplyDeleteThey are carrying an untreatable strain.
what a horror...dont expect the medial to report this truly hun! hugzzzzzzzzzzzzz xoxoxox hope u feel good AOW:)
ReplyDelete"The Health Department would not disclose the exact rate of infection for those tested who were born outside the United States...."Why the hell not? Time to put PC aside. The people of that area have a right to know, in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteJim,
DeleteWe still don't have further specific information about the outbreak at Lee High School.
In fact, the next round of testing begins on August 3.
Meanwhile, school activities are continuing as usual.
Fairfax County had better hope very strongly that Northern Virginia isn't facing a situation similar to that of Sheboygan, Michigan!
Um, make that "Sheboygan, Wisconsin"! Sheesh.
DeleteI listened to an NPR segment a couple of weeks ago about an outbreak in Wisconsin.
ReplyDeleteThersites,
DeleteI just read that link. Wow!
A few portions jumped out at me:
Sheboygan County officials have had to scramble to contain it. At the height of the crisis, the county activated its emergency operation center — a step usually reserved for major fires, floods and tornadoes.
The county has had to borrow personnel from other jurisdictions, calm parents of schoolchildren, find housing to isolate infected families and appeal to the state for millions of dollars in extra money to deal with the situation.
and
The Sheboygan outbreak came to light on April 11. The first case was a woman at the center of a large, close-knit family. Health officials decline to identify the family, but they say the people were part of an immigrant community, a common theme in most current TB outbreaks in the U.S.
Sheboygan is home to sizable populations from Mexico and Southeast Asia, where TB is common. Asian immigrants make up half of Wisconsin's recent TB cases. Refugees among the Hmong people of Laos and Thailand have been among the most-difficult to treat cases.
and
Active TB has to be treated until it's no longer contagious. That can take up to a year.
And it's multi-drug resistant TB, too.
Antibiotics cost $300,000 PER CASE!
What a nightmare!
Yup can listen to a rebroadcast, too. The original case was a Hmong immigrant.
DeleteMay be a good reason to put "The Plague" on next year's reading list, AOW.
ReplyDeleteDuck,
DeleteCamus is an option. This term we have World Literature as the focus.
My daughter has been accepted to USF this semester and they have had an outbreak of TB. She had to prove she wasn't infected to enroll. Third world, anyone?
ReplyDeleteSince there is an "outbreak" there I would want USF's assurance that [she] won't become infected!
ReplyDeleteWe've had reports for years about TB and other diseases. When we report on it, we are poo pooed by pro open borders folks as being hate mongers etc. The truth hurts.
ReplyDeleteDebbie
Right Truth
http://www.righttruth.typepad.com
TB is the least of our problems. Far more serious diseases are easily transportable in this day and age. Typhoid Mary is on the next flight into New York's Kennedy Field.
ReplyDeleteThis is the way the world ends.
ReplyDeleteThis is the way the world ends.
Not with a bang but a hacking cough.