On Monday, Alice ISD sent a letter to the Alice HS community to inform them that a high school student had a communicable disease. The district also compiled a list of students who might have been exposed to this communicable disease, but that list was not released.
Below is the letter that Alice ISD sent out to students and parents.
Alice ISD KRIS 6 News called the Texas Department of Health Services to find out what the communicable disease was, as it was not named in the letter from Alice ISD. Chris Van Deusen from State Health Services said that one case of tuberculosis was diagnosed in a person associated with Alice High School. That person was getting treatment and is no longer contagious. KRIS 6 also found that 34 people who could have been exposed to the contagious person. Those identified have been recommended to get screened this week.
According to the Texas Department of Health Services, tuberculosis is not very contagious and usually does not make people very sick quickly. “That gives us an excellent chance to test people, find out if any were infected, and get them antibiotics to kill the bacteria before they ever get sick. We want to do that so they don’t get sick months or years later and spread the bacteria to others,” Chris Van Deusen said.