This has made the news the past few days here. The scary part is that at first they made it sound like they weren't worried about others having it, then they did some testing and found that 12 others did, could be more. It becomes an issue when you have people who have it, spread it, and who knows who they have been in contact with, for how long, etc... No word on how this man initially got it, travel, immigration, happenstance. So we might never know where the source of the infection was. Just like government and the media, keeping us all in the dark to promote their own agendas, or to simply have control over everything.


Tuberculosis detected in Beaverton co-workers

Health - A former employee has TB; 12 others at the same call center show signs of it

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

MICHELLE MANDEL
The Oregonian
BEAVERTON -- A former employee of a Beaverton call center has tuberculosis and 12 of his co-workers are showing evidence of the disease, Washington County health officials said Monday.

The man, who has not worked at Stream since early March, is being treated for the disease, said Kent Burtner, the county Department of Health and Human Services' public information officer.

The dozen co-workers who tested positive with latent tuberculosis -- a level of the disease where its germs remain inactive -- also are being treated. They cannot spread the disease to others, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

After learning the man was infected, Washington County health workers conducted tuberculosis skin tests on 69 of Stream's 1,068 employees in late March. Eleven of the 12 employees with latent tuberculosis had close contact with the infected employee.

Family members of the man with the active disease, whose identity is protected by privacy laws, also tested positive for latent tuberculosis, Burtner said.

Tuberculosis usually affects the lungs, but it can also affect other body parts, including the brain, kidneys and spine. It can be fatal if not treated.

The disease spreads by air -- through coughing, sneezing, speaking or singing.

Victor Burgess, site manager of Stream's Beaverton call center, said the employee's job required use of a telephone headset. He would not speculate whether that contributed to the disease's spread.

Germs can stay in the air for hours, said Burtner, who stressed the disease's difficulty to contract.

"You have to be around the person for a long time, possibly hundreds of hours, to get it," Burtner said. "If you were walking down the street, and somebody with TB sneezed and you breathed the air, the chances are slim to none that you would get it."

The odds of latent tuberculosis in a person who is not being treated to evolve into the disease's active variety is 10 percent, Burtner said.

"It is a treatable disease," he said. "We have every expectation that the person affected in this case will recover."

County health officials said they do not know how the man contracted the disease.

Burgess said the company has been working closely with health officials. "The health and well-being of our employees is very important to us," he said.

Burtner said the public should not be concerned by the disease's outbreak. Typically eight to 20 cases of active tuberculosis are diagnosed and reported annually in Washington County.

According to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, Oregon reported 81 active tuberculosis cases in 2006, with eight in Washington County.

Michelle Mandel: 503-294-5959; michellemandel@ news.oregonian.com



©2007 The Oregonian