But concerned North Toronto students and parents questioned whether everyone at the school should be tested. Students Tim Niebergall and Nathan Chlebak agreed with her. However, Pollock said widespread testing of the students would be ineffective and unnecessary. The highly sensitive test could generate a lot of false positive results if everyone was tested, she said. False positives would mean students could be placed on six months of antibiotic therapy for no reason.
Tuberculosis is an infectious disease spread by coughing, spitting or sneezing.
Once inhaled, it stays in the lungs. Early signs include chest pain, weight loss, night sweats and fever. Healthy lung tissue reacts by producing protective cells that engulf the invading organism, forming tubercles. Left untreated, the tubercles grow larger and merge, sloughing off into the lung cavities and causing death. The disease is treated through antibiotics and rarely is fatal in Canada, but some strains can become resistant to some drugs.