Nearly 350 Fort Wayne, Indiana Firefighters Being Tested For TB

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) -- All 347 of the city's firefighters are being tested for tuberculosis after some came in contact with a tuberculosis patient, the fire chief said.

The Fort Wayne-Allen County Health Department also has asked all emergency workers - including police officers - to be tested for the disease every six months instead of annually because of a recent increase in cases.

The county typically has eight to 10 cases a year. But it has had 16 in 2003 and 14 so far this year, said Dr. Deborah McMahan, a city-county health commissioner.

``We are at, I think, the very early stages of this outbreak,'' she said.

Fort Wayne television station WPTA reported Tuesday that more than 20 firefighters have tested positive for TB.

Fire Chief Tim Davie and city-county health agency spokeswoman Mindy Waldron said they could not comment on such specifics because of federal privacy laws.

Waldron said officials could release only patients' ZIP code, gender and race. She said that most of the cases are black women with an average age of 36.

Ninety percent of people who are infected have no symptoms and will not develop active TB, according to the Indiana Department of Health.

Officials have not identified an active case of TB since late June, The Journal Gazette reported.

The federal government has provided the county about $200,000 in grants to battle the disease.

Davie said the TB testing has not caused a staffing problem for the department.

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• Fort Wayne, Indiana Firefighters Being Tested For TB
• Fort Wayne, Indiana Firefighters Being Tested for Tuberculosis