Tests confirm an international student at Iowa State University has tuberculosis.
Incoming international students are tested for tuberculosis and other infectious diseases and the student, who lives on the Ames campus, will remain in isolation until doctors clear the student to return to class. County public health officials are contacting students and staff who were in close contact with the student who has TB, so they can be tested.
Doctors use antibiotics to treat the disease, both when a patient is sick and when a patient has a latent form of TB and doesn’t have any of the symptoms.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, TB is spread when someone who has it coughs, sneezes, speaks or sings and another person nearby breathes in the airborne particles. You can’t get it from shaking hands or touching the same surface someone with TB has touched. There is no vaccine for tuberculosis.