22 June 2013 (14:35 UTC-07 Tango)/13 Sha’ban 1434/01 Tir 1391/15 Wu-Wu (5th month) 4711

In Virginia, the Fairfax County Health Department is investigating a TB outbreak where as many as 430 people at Robert E. Lee High School, in Springfield, have been exposed.

In South Carolina, a nurse formerly in charge of the tuberculosis program with the Department of Health and Environmental Control, is suing the DHEC for firing her after she revealed the DHEC intentionally tried to cover up a recent TB outbreak at the Ninety Six Primary School in Greenwood County.  She also says the DHEC actually ordered her to stop follow-up tests on students at the school.

She was fired on 30 May, after repeated requests to continue the TB testing.  The DHEC claims they fired her because she was the one refusing to conduct TB tests. Testing was resumed after her termination.

According to the lawyer representing the nurse there is a posting on the internet to the DHEC, from the nurse, requesting more staffing and supplies, which was ignored.

South Carolina is also where a school janitor was placed in detention under Title 44-Health, Chapter 31, Article 2 THE EMERGENCY DETENTION AND COMMITMENT OF TUBERCULOSIS PATIENTS law.

I don’t know what’s going on with the DHEC, but TB has now spread throughout South Carolina.  Reports of outbreaks at a Myrtle Beach homeless shelter, and at Clemson University.

In Wisconsin, after slashing and burning funding for health care, the state legislature is considering $4.6 million USD to fight an outbreak of tuberculosis in Sheboygan.  Eight cases confirmed.  Those infected have been quarantined in their homes or in hospitals.  At least one person has a type of TB that is resistant to almost all anti-biotics.

Many people in the U.S. don’t know that back in February 2013, Los Angeles, California, saw a TB outbreak that is suspected of exposing at least 4600 people.  It was so bad that Los Angeles County Health Department asked for help from the federal government.  Of interest is that these cases seemed to be targeting homeless or low income people (par for the course in the history of TB epidemics), and have been getting worse year after year.  The TB outbreak in LA hasn’t stopped.  The latest reports say the UCLA School of Nursing Health Center is on the front lines trying to fight the outbreak, in the past two years they’ve screened 11000 people: “Our screening has gone up about 200%!”-Mary Marfisee, director UCLA nursing clinic inside the Union Rescue Mission

In 2012, the state of Florida saw a TB outbreak that was called the worst in the past 20 years.  This as the state government slashed and burned funding for health programs.  Hundreds of people were confirmed infected with TB, thousands exposed.

Symptoms include fever, chills and coughing up of blood.