The Investigation of a Tuberculosis Cluster in a High School in Southern Taiwan, 2012

Yu-Hsin Chen, Huei-Jhen Lin, Chiou-Yueh You, Chao-Ching Chang

2013 Vol.29 NO.18

Correspondence Author： Yu-Hsin Chen

Abstract：

       A contact of a diagnosed tuberculosis (TB) case in a high school campus was confirmed to be infected with TB, triggering an alert on the Central Infectious Disease Tracking and Management System in July 2012. Upon investigation, the index case was a high school student and was diagnosed as a TB case in June 2011. This new case was reported when his chest X-ray showed abnormal lesions during the twelfth-month contact tracing examination since the index case was identified. After subsequent contact examinations, further four TB cases were reported as of December 2012. Including the index case, there were six reported cases in total. Among them, five cases had been confirmed, and the other one was excluded. The five confirmed cases were classmates, in which three cases had Mycobacterium tuberculosis grown from sputum cultures. The strains were sent to the Research and Diagnostic Center of Taiwan CDC for molecular typing. The results confirmed the same genotype of the three strains on April 10, 2013. Therefore, this event was determined to be a campus cluster of TB infection.