If you happened to find yourself thinking, “It’s never been this hot over Memorial Day weekend,” simply put: You were right.FORT WAYNE – The Fort Wayne-Allen County Department of Health has identified a recent active case of tuberculosis as a multidrug-resistant strain, meaning it’s not responding to the most powerful first-line drugs used to treat TB.
In the past week, nearly 150 students at Fort Wayne Community Schools have been screened for tuberculosis after one of their peers was diagnosed with active TB in December. The health department did not know the person’s case was multidrug resistant until recently, department spokesman John Silcox said.
It’s the first known case of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in Allen County, he said.
The student is now in isolation and undergoing treatment, and no one else associated with the person has been identified with active TB, although testing is ongoing, Silcox said.
Multidrug-resistant TB is spread the same way as regular TB, but it does not respond to the common drugs used to treat the disease, Health Commissioner Dr. Deborah McMahon said.
A patient with multidrug-resistant TB must be treated with a second line of drugs, McMahon said, and if that does not work, a third line, and so on.
“The farther you go, the less effective the treatment,” McMahon said.
A person with a regular case of TB is treated with four drugs over six months; a person with multidrug-resistant TB must be treated with six medications – including shots – for two years, McMahon said.
In addition to two years of treatment, the person must have the infected part of his or her lungs surgically removed, she said.
“When the (medications) don’t work, they almost always resort to surgery as treatment,” McMahon said.
The student was in an all-day program at Anthis Career Center and exposure to other students was minimal, FWCS spokeswoman Krista Stockman said.
The school and health department did not release information on the student, citing privacy laws.
Because the student was confined to one area at Anthis, the school was able to identify the other students who might have been exposed as those at Anthis and those who rode the same bus to Anthis, she said. Those identified include students from Anthis Career Center, Wayne High School, Northrop High School and Ward Education Center, Stockman said.
Parents of students who might be affected were contacted by phone and a letter was sent home to families to explain the situation and provide additional information. A second round of TB skin testing is required in eight to 10 weeks to rule out TB infection, so it will likely be a few months before health officials know whether any one else was infected and needs to be on treatment.
“Because we know that some of the individuals being tested are high risk for having a prior TB exposure, we anticipate having some positive skin tests during the first round of testing,” McMahon said. “We will need to be careful in how we interpret these results, and it will likely be some time before we know if any of these positive cases are linked to this index case.”
TB is caused by a tiny organism known as mycobacterium tuberculosis and is highly contagious, spread from person to person through the air, according to information on the local health department’s website. TB is not spread by kissing, shaking hands or touching objects such as bed linens or toilet seats. It usually requires close contact over a period of time.
Symptoms of TB, which usually settles in the lungs but may infect other parts of the body, include weakness, weight loss, fever, night sweats, coughing, sometimes coughing up blood and chest pain. In most cases, TB is treatable; however, people with TB can die if they do not get proper treatment.
Even if someone is infected with TB bacteria, it does not mean the person will get TB. Most people who become infected do not develop TB disease because their body’s defenses protect them. Only people with symptoms of active TB disease can spread the disease to others.
