Potential tuberculosis case at Dumas school - KSWO, Lawton, OK- Wichita Falls, TX: News, Weather, Sports. ABC, 24/7, Telemundo -

Potential tuberculosis case at Dumas school

DUMAS - The Texas Department of State Health Services will be at Dumas Intermediate School early Tuesday testing students and staff for tuberculosis.

"We received word from the health department that we may have a positive on a tuberculosis student of ours,"
      
One-hundred students and staff identified as being in close contact with the suspected tuberculosis student will receive skin tests.

Dumas ISD says no one at the school is officially diagnosed with TB right now.

"Our students are safe, healthy, there's not cause for alarm,"
      
The Department of State Health Services will take two days to process Tuesday's skin tests. Anyone who reacts to it will find out Thursday if they need a chest x-ray.

The NewsChannel 10 Facebook page flooded with concerned parents today, but the health department says TB is not as dangerous as it once was, and not as contagious as many people think.

"It doesn't spread as easily as illnesses like for example the flu or a cold,"  "It's got to be coughed out or breathed out by someone and then directly breathed in by somebody else."

The vast majority of people who do come into contact with the disease never get sick and never pass it on to others. But skin tests like the one to beheld at Dumas Intermediate on Tuesday can detect active and lament cases of TB, which can both be treated with an antibiotic.