Dozens Test Positive for Exposure to Tuberculosis

At least 80 students, teachers and staff at Ennis High School have tested positive for exposure to tuberculosis.

The skin tests were ordered because a teacher now on medical leave was diagnosed with the bacterial infection just before the first day of school.

Dr. Brian Smith of the Texas Department of State Health Services, said people who a positive skin test normally are not sick and are not infectious.

“What a positive skin test means is that a person has been exposed to the disease and they have picked up a tiny bit of the bacteria that has caused their body to react to the skin test, so in those persons you can kill the bacteria by giving a single medication for nine months,” he said.

Those who tested positive are now being told to get chest X-rays at Baylor Medical Center in Waxahachie.

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In all, 235 people at the high school were tested last week. The school has a student enrollment of 1,580.

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