Missouri Health Officials' Test for TB at Elementary School Comes Up Negative

On Friday, St. Charles County health officials said that no further TB testing should be needed at Francis Howell's Daniel Boone Elementary School in New Melle. Skin tests to detect the bacteria that cause the lung disease were given recently to 391 students and staff members, and the results were examined on Thursday. Gil Copley, St. Charles County health director, said that no further positive results were found and that no new tests should be necessary. "If there was anything there, we should have caught it" Copley said.

County health officials learned on Jan. 4 that a person associated with the school had a case of active TB and that the person had been around the children between October and November. After an investigation, health officials tested 24 students and two teachers in one fifth grade class on Jan. 22. One student tested positive, prompting testing for everyone in the school on Jan. 29 -- about 455 students, 50 employees and five high school students who were in the school as teachers' aides or cadets. That round of testing showed no new results.

A positive skin test does not mean that a person has TB, only that the person probably has or had the bacteria that cause TB. Copley said that no one in the school has had active TB except the original person with the disease. That person was treated and has since recovered.

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