There’s little reason for Auraria students to be worried about the reported case of tuberculosis at MSU Denver.

That’s what Dr. David Cohn, an infectious disease specialist and former director of the tuberculosis clinic at Denver Health, assured to reporters at a press conference on March 26 in Health Center. Three weeks ago, an MSU Denver student was found to have active tuberculosis at an off-campus clinic.

“This person is currently receiving care for tuberculosis and currently feels better and also is no longer on campus,” Cohn said. “If you have a case of active TB, we treat that case with four drugs followed by two drugs, usually over six months. That person then becomes non-infectious after about two weeks of therapy, and they’re cured after about six months of therapy.”

Cohn explained that the current phase in response to the diagnosis is to conduct a contact investigation. As the name suggests, Denver Health officials will test people that the patient came into contact with starting with their immediate family and extending to about 150 students and faculty on campus. Those students and faculty have already been contacted via email.

Denver Health will conduct tests that examine one’s blood and skin for tuberculosis infection, which is the predecessor to active TB. Those with TB infection are not contagious. The former test will be repeated in eight weeks in case the infection takes longer to develop. Cohn said that it will take 8-12 weeks to know for sure if the patient infected anyone with TB. Denver Health did not find an active case of TB among their family members. TB can only be spread from person-to-person through the air.

Cohn said that those who live in the same house as someone with TB are at a higher risk of contracting TB versus classmates of the patient, who spend a minimal amount of time with that person. Cohn estimated that of the 150 subjects, it’s likely that a couple will have the infection. According to Cohn, 3-5 percent is most likely, with 10 percent considered high.

“Of the folks that have been exposed, we’re not worried about the people they have come in contact with,” Cohn said. “If you’ve come in contact with TB and you don’t have active TB, you’re not infectious yourself. We don’t anticipate there will be any active cases of TB from this.”

Dr. Ruben Zorrilla, medical director at Health Center at Auraria, joined Cohn front-and-center at the press conference. Though Denver Health is primarily conducting the investigation, Zorilla has been able to support their work.

He noted that the diagnosis was not made on campus.

“It happens to be that the student who has the case of active TB was a student here, never appeared at our clinic but was on campus,” Zorrilla said. “We did not learn of it until the contact investigation started.”

Zorrilla alluded that the student is a female but The Metropolitan could not confirm this.

Also joining Cohn and Zorrilla was Flor Ramirez, a disease intervention specialist with Denver Health.

Ramirez acknowledged the similar symptoms — night sweats, fever and cough among others — TB has with the flu, the former’s symptoms are more prolonged.

“That’s why when we are calling everyone affected, we make sure to ask their symptoms,” she said. “If they have a cough, well tell me about the cough. We do more questioning to make sure we’re not missing anything.”

This case comes on the heels of students and faculty at Aurora Hills Middle School — about 11 miles from the Auraria Campus — were tested for possible tuberculosis earlier this year. Cohn reiterated that the two are not connected.