Jasper High School Student Diagnosed With Tuberculosis

Walker County has not had a reported tuberculosis (TB) case since 2022 according to the Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH) "Annual Tuberculosis Surveillance Report."

The Jasper City School System has now reported one this school year at Jasper High School.

After being informed of the case, the board of education notified students who had close contact with the impacted student. ADPH is working with the school board to identify those students and schedule free testing.

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The student with the diagnosed case of TB cannot be publicly identified due to their age.

The school has since been sanitized with hospital-grade sanitizer. Officials say the cleaning means students, faculty, and staff are no longer at risk of exposure.

The Mayo Clinic defines TB as mainly affecting the lungs. They describe the germs that cause tuberculosis as a type of bacteria.

"Tuberculosis can spread when a person with the illness coughs, sneezes, or sings," according to the clinic's website. "This can put tiny droplets with the germs into the air. Another person can then breathe in the droplets, and the germs enter the lungs."

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says TB is one of the most highly communicable diseases. TB is treated differently from other airborne infectious diseases, as there are many state laws specific to the control of the highly infectious disease.

TB has been on the rise in the United States, a nation where the disease was once considered under control. Tuscaloosa County had eight cases reported in 2024.

Alabama is on the lower end of TB cases discovered over the last decade, but it was once so rampant in the state that there were eight state TB hospitals, one of them in Tuscaloosa.

Hale Memorial Hospital opened in 1958, with 154 beds in the three-story hospital on the grounds of what is now the DCH Medical Center. It was closed when TB was considered under control.

TB is still enough concern in Alabama that ADPH has a section on the disease on its website.