Sachem East High School student treated for tuberculosis, district says

The Sachem Central School District has advised some community members to undergo a skin test or blood test after being informed last week by the Suffolk County Department of Health Services that a student at Sachem East High School was undergoing treatment for tuberculosis.

Sachem East Principal Lou Antonetti sent a letter to parents, students and staff saying the health department had recommended "all individuals who might have been in contact" receive a standard Mantoux PPD skin test or a Quantiferon blood test to test for Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The letter, dated May 15, said skin tests would be administered at Sachem East during the school day on Monday and results would be evaluated by health department officials at the school on Wednesday. The test takes two days to show results, officials said.

In his letter, Antonetti wrote: "We are contacting you because we have reason to believe that you had contact with this individual during the time (s)he was infectious."

The skin tests administered Monday at Sachem East were done free of charge "only to individuals who were identified as having prolonged contact," the district said.

A spokesperson for the district confirmed that the person in question, referred to as "an individual in the school community" in the principal's letter, is a student. The spokesperson also said 116 students and seven staff members received the letter about the potential exposure.

It was not clear how many individuals were tested Monday at Sachem East, or how many have undergone similar tests administered elsewhere.

Suffolk Department of Health Services director of public relations Grace Kelly-McGovern said "bureau staff is in contact with the school administration to identify persons who may have had close and prolonged contact with the individual," adding that the investigation is ongoing.

According to the district, additional testing will be conducted in July to ensure the two-month incubation period for tuberculosis has elapsed.

Tuberculosis is an airborne disease that spreads from one person to another, and the germs can linger in the air for several hours, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While not everyone who gets infected with tuberculosis gets sick, it primarily affects the lungs and can also harm the brain, kidney or spine. In recent times, the United States has had one of the world's lowest rates of tuberculosis, although it increased in 2023: to 2.9 cases per 100,000 persons from 2.5 cases in 2022.

Last year, there were 52 cases in Suffolk and 48 in Nassau, according to state Health Department statistics.

If a person is without symptoms but tests positive, via skin or blood test, the typical prescription would be a short course of antibiotics for three or four months, such as Rifapentine, Rifampin or Isoniazid, and then the risk of getting tuberculosis is almost zero, said Dr. Aaron Glatt, an infectious diseases expert at Mount Sinai South Nassau.

It's a different treatment if a person has symptoms — such as coughing, fever, weight loss or shortness of breath — and tests positive. That requires a regimen of three or four drugs.

Between 20% and 30% of those exposed to a person with active tuberculosis become infected, according to the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Glatt has taken care of hundreds tuberculosis cases in his career and has seen "a handful of cases in the last year or two," he said.

In its notification, Sachem provided a consent form for the skin test and also a medical information release form, the latter for the Suffolk health department to provide results to families. The district said it also forwarded a general information flyer on tuberculosis to those notified and recommended that anyone with further questions visit the CDC website at cdc.gov/tb.

The district also advised parents and guardians who had their children tested by a preferred health care provider to have those results forwarded to the health department.