Student Health Service and the D.C. Department of Health are contacting members of the GW community who may have been in close contact with someone who has a suspected case of tuberculosis.
Individuals who may have come in contact with the person in question will receive emails or phone calls with instructions how to be assessed for the risk of TB and how to receive a skin test.
Members of the GW community who are not contacted do not need to take any action at this time, according to the health department.
According to Gary L. Simon, Walter G. Ross Professor of Medicine, TB is spread by aerosol droplets.
“A professor in a large classroom is not likely to infect many people,” says Dr. Simon, director of the Division of Infectious Diseases and vice chairman of the Department of Medicine. “The closer the contact, the greater the risk of infection.”
Dr. Simon says there is always a concern about the possibility of drug-resistant tuberculosis, but multidrug and extensive drug resistance “has been less frequently reported in the United States than in Russia or sub-Saharan Africa.
“TB is a communicable disease. Having said that, it is also a disease of poverty and malnutrition, so there is less TB in the developed world,” he says.
According to Dr. Simon, TB declined in the United States with the rise of standard of living even before anti-tuberculous therapy was introduced. “Nevertheless, contact with individuals who have TB does put someone at risk for acquiring infection (although not necessarily disease) even in the developed world,” he says.
“The tests, if done correctly, are reasonably reliable,” Dr. Simon says.
The GW individual who has the suspected case of TB will remain anonymous for both legal and ethical reasons, Dr. Simon says.
According to a GW Campus Advisory message, TB is an infection that “typically affects the lungs” and is spread when bacteria are placed in the air through coughs, sneezes or laughs. Exposure can also occur during an extended period of time sharing an enclosed space, but not by touching an inanimate object, says the message.
Symptoms may include a cough that lingers for more than three weeks, blood in concentrated saliva (sputum), loss of appetite, unexplained weight loss, fever, extreme tiredness or sore throat, according to the email.
Additional resources: D.C. Department of Health’s Bureau of TB Control, 202-698-4040 (Monday to Friday from 8:15 a.m. to 4:45 p.m., after business hours, leave a message and it will be returned within 24 hours).