On Tuesday, health officials announced that they are notifying close contacts of a UW-Madison student who has tuberculosis and providing free testing. The student with active, contagious TB has not been on the campus since December, according to Sarah Clifford Glapa, spokesperson for UW’s University Health Services. The student resided in Smith Residence Hall. Following the identification of the case on January 30, UHS and Public Health Madison and Dane County began notifying roommates, classmates, friends, family members, and others who might have been exposed to TB, and offering testing, Glapa said. UHS has reached out to over 700 members of the campus “out of an abundance of caution,” she added. No other active cases of TB have been identified.
Active cases of tuberculosis, a bacterial infection, are contagious and can lead to severe illness in the lungs and other parts of the body, and even death. TB can be transmitted when a person with active TB disease expels bacteria into the air through coughing or sneezing.
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Latent infections, where people test positive but do not exhibit symptoms, are not believed to be contagious. Both forms should be treated with antibiotics, as latent infections have the potential to become active later if left untreated, according to health officials. Glapa mentioned that it is “rare to have an active case of TB on campus,” but the risk of transmission is low. In 2022, Wisconsin reported 52 cases of active TB, resulting in five deaths, according to the state Department of Health Services. The majority of the patients were exposed to TB outside the U.S. or had close contact with someone with active TB disease. Dane County registered 10 cases of active TB and 464 reports of latent TB last year, with nine active TB cases and 321 latent infections reported in 2022, as per Public Health’s new communicable diseases dashboard.
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