Arkansas Health Board Approves Testing Some Foreign Students for TB

Under a measure approved Thursday by the Arkansas Board of Health, some foreign-born students attending colleges and universities in the state will have to be tested for TB. The regulation, approved unanimously, will require TB skin testing, followed by a chest X-ray if the skin test is positive. The measure will not take effect until signed by Gov. Mike Huckabee, according to Dr. Joe Bates, deputy health officer for the state Health Department.

The requirement covers "only ... students who come from countries where the prevalence of tuberculosis is high," Bates said. It will apply to students from all of Asia, Africa, Central America and South America, as well as some former parts of the Soviet Union. In Russia and some of its neighboring countries, TB rates have skyrocketed since the collapse of the Soviet Union and much of its broad-based public health program.

About 2,500 foreign students are registered at Arkansas colleges and universities. Because some have had undiagnosed active TB when they enrolled, other students were infected, Bates said. In 1997, the University of Arkansas tested 122 students for the disease after two international students were found to be carriers. A student from India died from the disease. "They come from all over the world, in some places where tuberculosis is a problem. As they come here to be students, they bring that problem with them," Bates told a legislative committee in May. "This regulation is intended to help us discover them as they matriculate and control that situation if they happen to have it."

Rita Sklar, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Arkansas, had previously expressed concerns about the testing proposal, but said on Thursday the group will not oppose the requirement.

The regulation will cover only newly enrolled foreign students in its first year. Later, testing will be an enrollment requirement for all students from the countries covered.

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