The University of Colorado at Boulder has identified 39 students who were enrolled in a summer class taught by a School of Education research associate who has tested positive for tuberculosis, CU-Boulder officials said today.
The research associate is a Denver resident who has submitted to a voluntary home quarantine, according to Denver Health Medical Center officials who are working with Boulder Public Health and CU officials.
CU-Boulder has given officials at Denver Health Medical Center contact information for the students. Denver Health and Boulder County Public Health Department officials are in the process of contacting the students, who will be advised to be tested for TB as a precautionary measure. Test results will take two to three weeks.
"Our public health experts have been working with their colleagues in Denver and in Boulder County, and based upon the contact pattern established - which is very limited - we do not feel this individual represents a health threat to our larger student body and campus community," said Gary Chadwick, director of Wardenburg Health Center on the CU-Boulder campus.
A contact study determines which individuals might have come into contact with someone who has been diagnosed with tuberculosis. In this particular case, Denver Health officials estimate that only six individuals had sufficient interaction with the infected individual to require testing. However, as a precautionary measure, a number of family members, faculty, staff and associates of the faculty member also were tested.
Casual, brief contact with an individual, or merely passing through a building, is highly unlikely to transmit tuberculosis. Close, prolonged contact with an infected person in enclosed areas such as an office is a much more likely means of transmission, health officials say. Laboratory results can take two to three weeks to determine if the precise strain of tuberculosis is drug resistant and these tests are being conducted.
"While we await the results of those tests, the university community should know this individual is fully complying with an isolation order and has pledged to stay in isolation at home for the mandatory two to three-week period until test results are returned," Chadwick said.
It is not yet known how the faculty member may have been exposed to tuberculosis.
All incoming CU-Boulder students are screened for TB risk factors. Â鶹ÒùÔº who have had a TB vaccination cannot opt out of screening or testing. No active cases of TB have been reported in recent memory in CU housing facilities.
Wardenburg officials say they encounter, on average, about one or two active student cases of TB per year on the CU-Boulder campus. Those cases are then handled through the appropriate testing and quarantine protocols to protect the campus community.
For questions about TB, Denver Health officials recommend visiting the Centers for Disease Control Web site at: