Panic has exploded in a New York high school after more than one hundred students and staff were evaluated by the most fatal disease in the world.
A student infected with tuberculosis attended Sachem East High School in Suffolk County, Long Island, earlier this month.
Now more than 116 students and seven teachers are asked to receive the disease test to ensure that they are not infected, with the expected results later today.
The director Lou Antonetti alerted parents about the possible outbreak in a letter that urged their children to be proven.
A mother of the school raised concerns to local media, saying that she felt more needy to protect students and disease staff.
The World Health Organization considers that tuberculosis is the most fatal disease in the world because it kills most people, claiming around 1.25 million lives every year, mainly in developing countries.
The infection was considered a death sentence in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when there was no cure, although it can now be treated with antibiotics, and also vaccinated.
Most cases of tuberculosis in the US.
More than one hundred have been tested for the disease in Sachem East High School in the state of New York (stock)
High school teaches more than 2,000 children in the state. About six percent require help with the English language, data from the year 2022 to 2023 suggest
Tuberculosis is highly infectious, spreads through drops released in coughs and sneezing that hang in the air for hours after an infectious patient passes.
In some cases, the disease may be inactive in the body for years, but in others triggers a rapid infection that attacks the lungs.
The symptoms begin as a cough that lasts three weeks or more and coughs the blood before progressing in not treated to respiratory failure, or cannot breathe and death.
Writing to the parents of children who may have been exposed to the disease on May 16, the director Antonetti wrote: «We are contacting ourselves because we have reasons to believe that he had contact with this individual during the time (s) that was contagious.»
The tests were carried out for free at school on Monday, May 19, with doctors who use a skin test, where a clear liquid is injected under the skin and doctors expect hard protuberances to appear, which shows that someone has the disease.
There will be more tests two months later in July, covering the two -month incubation period that the disease has before an infected person shows symptoms.
Health officials are carrying out the contact tracking to establish who had spent long periods near the infected student, which would put them at greater risk of infection.
Janie Gallo, resident and father of Farmingville at school, criticized the authorities and told the local station News12: «What is being done to guarantee the safety of children when we, as parents or guardians, send them to school?!»
Another resident, Anton Kovary, said: ‘I have had TB before, so you can fight him. You can overcome any type of disease you have.
A third, called Lisa Russo, added: «Anyway, it is just a student who had it, and everyone is being tested, so I am not worried about that.»
Tuberculosis was considered a death sentence in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries because there was no effective treatment (stock photo of the bacteria that causes the disease)
Suffolk County, which covers most of Long Island and is where the school is located, is rich, with the average resident winning $ 128,000 per year on average.
However, Sachem East High School data for 2022 and 2023 show that about 32 percent of children attending school, or 663 people, are considered at an economic disadvantage.
About six percent of the attendees, or 119 students, are also considered English apprentices, which means that they speak a language that is not English at home and require support to learn the language.
In an active case of tuberculosis, symptoms begin as a bad cough that lasts three weeks, chest pain and blood cough.
In severe cases, the disease causes extensive damage to the lungs, which causes problems to breathe and, finally, death.
Tuberculosis can now be treated effectively with antibiotics, and there is also an available vaccine, called BCG vaccine.
This is not offered routinely in the US, because the disease is not common, the vaccine is less effective in adults and can lead to results of false positive tests.
But parents have the option of vaccinating their children. In developing countries, it is delivered to young children, but children under 16 can be administered.
It is famous for typically leaving a small and circular scar on the arm, which is a normal response to the vaccine and a sign that it was effective.
There were 10,347 cases of tuberculosis detected in the US. In 2024, of which one in ten, or 1,089 infections, were recorded in the state of New York.
Despite its high prices, New York City continues to be the most visited city in the United States that accompanies 64.3 million travelers only in 2024.
Experts say that this international trip increases the risk that people bring diseases, such as tuberculosis, from other countries to the United States.
At least two people died of tuberculosis in the United States last year in the middle of an outbreak in Kansas City, which became the largest in the country since the 1950s.
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