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Boeing Testing for Tuberculosis
News @ your Desk 11-8-07


November 7, 2007

NewsChannel 19's Amber Stuart Reporting:

Another company in the Tennessee Valley is about to start Tuberculosis testing. It's a major player in Huntsville's defense industry.

Boeing had a worker come through on temporary duty in March, who has has tested positive for active T.B. It may seem like a long time, from March to now. The person who tested positive didn't find out until August. Talk about a delay, the Madison County Health Department only got the news Tuesday. Now, it's time to test employees.

The person worked at Boeing, near the Huntsville International Airport for a couple of weeks in March. He came to Huntsville from California.

"So they knew he was positive for something in August," said Dr. Debra Williams with the Madison County Health Department. "They started him on medication. So he's probably fine right now, but to grow it to find out exactly what the germ is takes 6 to 8 weeks which is like now."

Dr. Debra Williams, with the Madison County Health Department, says she believes Huntsville's Boeing workers will be safe from Tuberculosis.

"From this patient it's very unlikely that people will be infected," said Dr. Williams.

The patient who has active T.B. is now in California again, and he's doing better.

"It is not serious at all. His germs are sensitive to all the regular medications," said Dr. Williams. "So if someone were infected I would imagine that we would call it a latent T.B. infection. Which means their skin test may be positive, but I would doubt seriously that anyone is active from this now."

Boeing will start testing next week. They'll test employees who were in contact with the man who was infected.

Dr. Debra Williams says the infected worker showed symptoms of T.B., during his time at Boeing in Huntsville. He had a cough. So she doesn't imagine many people hung around him.