UC Davis says contagious tuberculosis case identified

This article originally appeared on KCRA.com.

DAVIS, Calif. — UC Davis says a person with a contagious case of tuberculosis was identified in the Davis community, and contact tracing is underway to keep the disease from spreading.

A news release from the university did not say when the person was identified as having active TB. It said that campus health officials are working to identify as a close contact with anyone who had at least eight hours of total exposure to the infected person. Close contacts will need to be evaluated for TB.

Active TB symptoms can include a cough that lasts for three weeks or longer, chest pain or coughing up blood, weakness or fatigue, weight or appetite loss, chills, fever or sweating at night, UC Davis said.

Most people with TB have an inactive infection that is not contagious, and UC Davis said that the exposure risk for the general community is low.

UC Davis said it is working with the Yolo County Health and Human Services Agency on the contact tracing effort.

“Not everybody who is exposed to somebody with active TB will become infected. There are a lot of factors that go into play,” Yolo County Public Health Office Dr. Aimee Sisson said.

That includes how infectious the original case is, how small the room is where someone may have been exposed and how long the exposure is, as well as the exposed person’s immune system, she said.

“So all of those go into determining whether someone who is exposed will develop an infection,” she said.

It’s unclear how many people have been identified as close contacts so far. Asked for more information by KCRA 3, a university spokesperson did not answer that question or say when the infected person was first identified as having active TB.

This story is developing.