ELYRIA — Health officials tested more than 1,800 students for the tuberculosis bacteria Monday and Tuesday at Elyria High School, after a student was diagnosed with the respiratory disease last month.

Teachers were tested last week and so far none has tested positive for the bacteria that causes an infection of the lungs.

“Nearly everyone in the building, teachers and staff, were tested and have been cleared,” said Principal Darren Conley.

School is canceled for Elyria High today due to a power outage, but Mary Ann Manning, administrative nurse at the Lorain County Tuberculosis Clinic, said nurses will return to the high school Thursday to read the skin test of each student. Test sites must be read within 48 to 72 hours of the original test.

Nurses will be looking for a bump on the skin, which will indicate that a student has been exposed to the tuberculosis bacteria.

However, Manning cautioned that a positive test does not mean a person has tuberculosis.

A positive skin test is just an indicator that a person has been exposed to tuberculosis bacteria. After a positive skin test, patients are told to have a chest X-ray, which is performed for free by the local tuberculosis clinic, to look for signs of the disease on the lungs.

Health professionals will determine the best course of treatment at that point. Manning said a positive skin test could just mean that the disease is lying dormant in the body, and a medication will be prescribed to eradicate the bacteria from the body.

In the meantime, school is operating as usual.

“The thing that took them the most time was signing them in and checking permission slips,” Conley said. “By the time they actually took the test, it was maybe 15 seconds.”

The student originally diagnosed with tuberculosis has not returned to school, but is recovering at home and taking the necessary medication.

Manning said it has been determined that the student contracted the disease from an out-of-state patient who is being treated by a doctor.

And, aside from missing two periods of English — once when the test was administered and again when health officials return to read the results — classes have not been disrupted. English class was chosen because each student has the class and school officials thought it was the best way to ensure each student was tested.

“They think it’s kind of silly that people are making a big deal about it, but they are kids,” Conley said. “They are making tuberculosis jokes in class, but still taking everything in stride as something they know they have to do.”

Conley said fewer than 150 students have not been tested. Only students with parental permission slips were tested. School officials will try to personally contact each untested student’s parents to make certain they do not want their child to be tested, Conley said.

Manning said baseline testing is nearly done — that’s the first round of skin tests — but nurses will have to return in 12 weeks and repeat the process.

Tuberculosis is a slow-growing bacterium that can take 10 to 12 weeks to be detected. A second round of testing is routine in exposure cases.

Manning said students from visiting sports teams and those who have briefly visited the school do not need to worry about having a tuberculosis test.

Contact Lisa Roberson at 329-7121 or lroberson@chroniclet.com.

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