LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Officials said that the Southern Nevada Health District is working with the Clark County School District on a tuberculosis investigation.
The district sent a media release Thursday evening to KTNV saying that a person with an active tuberculosis disease was on 26 school district campuses while they were sick. Officials say they had the potential to spread the disease to others.
The health district conducted a preliminary investigation and said the patient had minimal close contact with people at most of the campuses where they were present. So far, no exposures have been identified at eight of the campuses.
However, students and staff at Ruthe Deskin Elementary School at Craig Road and Buffalo Drive were identified as having potential TB exposure, according to the health district.
Other campuses under investigation by the health district include:
- Bruner ES
- Carl ES
- Centennial HS
- Cheyenne HS
- Darnell ES
- Deskin ES
- Goynes ES
- Guy ES
- Kahre ES
- Katz ES
- Leavitt ES
- Lied MS
- May
- Neal ES
- O’Roarke ES
- Saville MS
- Tobler ES
- Triggs ES
"Active TB disease is a serious disease," officials said. "However, the Health District emphasizes that not everyone who may have been exposed will be infected and not everyone who is infected with TB has active disease."
The district says TB screening and testing are provided to identify cases of latent TB infection. People with latent TB infection have no signs or symptoms of the disease.
"They are not sick and cannot spread the disease to others," SNHD officials say.
The district says they are conducting immediate and thorough investigations of known TB cases to identify individuals at risk of exposure.
"The Health District offers treatment for those people who are exposed and found to have a TB infection to prevent the development of active TB disease and avoid future exposures to TB cases in the community," the district said.
The following campuses have been investigated and have had no contacts identified at this time, according to SNHD:
- Allen ES
- Conners ES
- Eisenberg ES
- Fong ES
- McMillan ES
- Priest ES
- Scherkenbach ES
- Tarr ES
The Health District has set up an Information Line for people with additional questions about the investigation. It's available Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. by calling (702) 759-INFO (4636) or (866) 767-5038.
