The North Bergen Board of Education was slightly alarmed last week when it learned that 18 students and two employees at the district’s high school had to be tested for possible exposure to tuberculosis. According to Superintendent of Schools Peter Fischbach, the entire high school student body, their parents and the staff of the school were informed of the necessity of testing for the disease last week. Students were sent home with an informational letter outlining both the possibility of exposure and the testing procedure. “We took the proper concerns in accordance to the law,” Fischbach said. “Eventually, with the help of the Department of Health, we worked with the air of caution. We took all the necessary steps, because it’s better to be safe than sorry.” The suspected carrier of the tuberculosis infection was not identified, but is believed to be a high school student. Although there is no cause for panic, there is reason for concern. Tuberculosis is a chronic and contagious bacterial infection of the lungs and respiratory system that is usually contracted when the air surrounding an infected person coughing or sneezing is inhaled. It can be fatal if not diagnosed, and was the cause of thousands of deaths in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s. State health officials said that the chances for any student or staff member to contract tuberculosis are very slim, because the suspected carrier is not believed to have a contagious strain of the infection and the disease is believed to be in a very early stage. “We were told that there could only be a minimal number of students exposed to the person and for anyone to get the infection, they would need the equivalent of two hours of contact with the person for an extended period of time. Needless to say, it’s very rare,” said Fischbach. Fischbach added, “There’s always a reason for concern in a case like this. But I think we took all the proper steps and precautions.” Health officials said that only the students who had more than one class with the suspected carrier would be subjected to the TB tests. One of the tests is a skin test called Mantoux, which calls for injecting the tuberculin virus into skin to see if there is a reaction. After the students and staff were administered the skin test, they were set to be monitored over a span of 48 to 72 hours, to see if there is any presence of a hard nodule under the skin. Those who are thought to have some symptoms will be sent for x-rays and treatment. The suspected carrier was given a routine skin test when admitted into school in September, but another test given by a school nurse in November showed some symptoms of TB. The student underwent tests and x-rays and the initial reports showed no signs of tuberculosis. However, some of the tests that were sent to a laboratory took over a month to analyze since the tuberculin bacteria needs approximately 45 days to grow. The final lab results were not received until last week, when the State Department of Health informed the North Bergen Board of Education that the student was definitely a carrier of the TB infection. Since the confirmation was made that the TB infection was present in the school, tests were conducted to see if there were any further carriers. “It was a minor testing situation,” said Fischbach, who said that the student was a native of a country where TB is more prevalent, like Latin America, Asia and India. Further testing revealed that the student only had a slight case of the disease and that it was detected in the very early stages. Confirmed cases of TB are now considered very rare. According to statistics from the State Department of Health, the numbers of TB cases have dropped immensely since 1991, when the state had its “all-time high” of reported cases. In 1991, New Jersey had 983 reported cases, with 134 in Hudson County. In 1998, the last time a survey was taken, there were only 640 reported cases of TB and 87 in Hudson County. “It’s very rare now and we’ve done everything that was necessary in the Board of Education,” Fischbach said.