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The San Benito school district’s mass tuberculosis testing has cleared students and staff after a case turned up at the high school late last month.
The Cameron County Health Department’s testing of 160 students and six district staff members showed all tests came back negative for the rare pulmonary infection, Esmer Guajardo, health department’s administrator, said Tuesday.
Now, health officials are planning to retest the group in June “just to make sure,” she said.
“We’re pretty confident it’s going to be the same,” she said. “They’re pretty healthy and pretty young.”
Guajardo described tuberculosis as an airborne infection requiring about six to eight hours of continuous exposure to spread.
After the county health department reviewed the case, officials identified 148 high school students, 12 Veterans Memorial Academy students along with six staff members for testing, Luis Gonzales, the district’s spokesman, said in a statement.
On March 27, the county health department told district officials “an individual at San Benito High School had tested positive for tuberculosis.”
The next day, health department staff met with Texas Department of Health officials “to determine the next steps of identifying potential exposure and to develop testing guidelines for those students and staff at San Benito High School and Veterans’ Memorial Academy,” Gonzales said.
On April 3, district and county health department officials “identified, reviewed and verified the list of students and staff recommended for TB testing,” including 148 high school students, 12 Veterans Memorial Academy students and six staff members, Gonzales said.
Then on April 8, county health officials tested the group.