title: Too Busy for TB: Managing a Case of Tuberculosis Disease in the School Setting.
abstract: School nurses actively monitor the school population for signs of communicable disease on a daily basis. State regulations outline reportable diseases and provide guidance to control disease outbreak, including management of disease outbreak in the school setting. The purpose of this article is to review strategies recently used in managing a tuberculosis (TB) outbreak at a large high school in Kansas. A timeline of events is presented along with a discussion of the differences between latent TB infection and TB disease. Partnering across agencies and departments enabled the timely testing of over 400 individuals and subsequent management of individuals testing positive for latent TB infection. Public information officers provided necessary guidance to communicate to audiences both internally and externally.
authors.affiliation: Director of Health Services, Olathe Public Schools, Olathe, KS.
authors.forename: Cynthia A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Galemore
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004196:Disease Outbreaks / Q000517:prevention & control*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007615:Kansas; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods*; D012307:Risk Factors; D012573:School Nursing / Q000379:methods*; D012574:Schools; D014376:Tuberculosis / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000451:nursing*
keywords: TB disease; latent TB infection; school health partners; school surveillance; tuberculosis