By: Sam T. Jensen — samj@977thebolt.com
Hampton, IA — Public health officials will be at Hampton-Dumont High School before Christmas break to test students, staff, and faculty for tuberculosis.
Jenni Swart, Hampton-Dumont school nurse, says that tuberculosis, or TB, can get “quite complicated as in the length of time we could have it in our body [before] we actually develop it, but we can identify it and treat it.” Swart says testing and treatment will both be free with the state program.
According to a notice on the Hampton-Dumont district website, a student at the high school was recently diagnosed with the disease. It’s hard to say how the student contracted TB, says Swart, as “it’s transmitted with close contact [by] coughing, sneezing,” or just talking with a person that does have TB.
Hampton-Dumont Superintendent Todd Lettow says he’s doing his best to keep the community informed by way of updating the district’s website as a “central place where everybody can go and get the same information.”
Symptoms of active TB include sudden, unintentional weight loss, coughing that lasts more than three weeks, and fever-like symptoms.
The school district’s nurse is working with officials from Iowa, Franklin County, and the local hospital to come up with a list of people that should get tested. Those people will be notified as soon as possible