Two Amargosa TB patients return to normal activities

Tuesday, April 30, 2002 | 9:22 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The state Health Division says two people who contracted active tuberculosis in the farming community of Amargosa Valley are out of isolation and have returned to their normal activities.

Randall Todd, chief of the state Bureau of Disease Control and Intervention, said Monday the disease spread to a "number" of other people in Clark and Nye counties who have latent TB but cannot transmit it to others.

These with the latent TB are also being treated, Todd said.

"There is no crisis," he said. Health officials detect an average of about 100 cases of TB in Nevada a year. The symptoms for active TB are prolonged coughing, unexplained loss of weight, night sweats and coughing up blood.

In the two cases in Amargosa Valley, about 60 miles northwest of Las Vegas in Nye County, the strain of TB was resistant to the normal drugs. Todd said different and more expensive drugs had to be used to treat the individuals, whom he declined to identify.

The two patients were restricted to their home for several weeks. Todd said the drugs are working so the two have been released and are not a threat to spread the disease. He said one of the two will be on medication for two years and the other for nine months to a year.

Todd did not have an exact number of those who have "latent" TB. But he emphasized these people cannot spread the disease. They have a 10 percent chance of developing an "active" case, but with the use of medication, they have only a 1 percent chance of it rising to an "active" case.

There have been false rumors, Todd said, that a dairy in the valley was responsible for the TB. But he said the dairy has been certified as TB free.