Testing started on 11,400 inmates for tuberculosis

Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2005 | 9:57 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Testing has started on the 11,400 inmates in the state prison system after some staff and prisoners tested positive for tuberculosis at the Nevada State Prison in Carson City.

Fritz Schlottman, spokesman for the state Department of Corrections, said Tuesday that 2,500 correctional officers and other staff at the prisons have been tested and found negative for TB.

During a regular yearly examination, eight staff members at the Carson City prison tested positive, which Schlottman said means they were exposed to tuberculosis. However, subsequent x-rays showed they did not have the disease.

Inmates at the prison were tested and 29 came up positive, though further tests showed 28 of those were not infected. Schlottman said one inmate has been put into isolation and is being further tested to see if he actually is infected.

One worker at the prison in Lovelock tested positive but it is questionable that he has TB. And one inmate at the Northern Nevada Correctional Center in Carson City has tested positive.

Schlottman said some of the inmates who tested positive at the Nevada State Prison recently arrived from the prison in Ely and other locations.

The National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention said tuberculosis is a disease caused by bacteria that can attack any part of the body but usually lodges in the lungs.

The center said there has been a steady decline in the number of persons with TB but it is still a problem with more than 16,000 cases reported in 2000 in the United States.

The TB bacteria are spread when a person with the disease of the lungs coughs or sneezes. People nearby may breathe in the bacteria released into the air, thereby becoming infected, said the center.

People who are infected with latent TB do not feel sick, do not have any symptoms and cannot spread TB, the center said. But they may develop TB disease at some time in the future. People with TB can be cured.