By Jacob Carpenter
Naples Daily News
LEE COUNTY, Fla. — About 500 current and former Lee County jail inmates are being asked to take tests for tuberculosis after one inmate was found with the disease this month.
County health officials want anybody incarcerated between May 1 and Sept. 4 to get tested for the respiratory disease.
“We know that this particular inmate was in the Lee County facility, the downtown facility, during that time period, was not isolated and may have had active tuberculosis during that time period,” Lee County Health Department public information officer Diane Holm said. “We have not been able to identify when or from whom this was contracted.”
Tuberculosis is an airborne disease that primarily attacks the lungs but can spread to other organs, potentially causing death if not properly treated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Jail and prison populations can be susceptible to the infection because it is transferred through prolonged contact with an infected person. Symptoms of tuberculosis - coughing, fatigue, fever, loss of appetite — can sometimes lie dormant for several years before onset.
Health officials will be verifying that those receiving tests were incarcerated between May and early September.
The infected male inmate, whose name was not released, is being quarantined in an isolation cell at the Ortiz Avenue jail. He was housed at both the downtown Lee County Jail and the Ortiz Avenue location between May 1 and Sept. 4, Sheriff’s Office Sgt. David Velez said.
The infected inmate is expected to fully recover. Treatment of the disease typically takes six to 12 months.
“As long as the treatment continues, the inmate should come out of it just fine,” Holm said. “It can be a fatal disease, but with the antibiotics available nowadays, it isn’t frequent.”
Corrections deputies were tested late last week, but there is no danger in delaying the testing of inmates until Saturday as planned, Velez said.
“We’re working in conjunction with the Health Department, and had they thought the order was an issue, they would have said so,” Velez said.
Current inmates will receive a skin test, and those scheduling a health department appointment will get a skin or blood test.
Velez said female inmates also should be tested because males and females aren’t separated during the booking process.
“It’s a possibility and it couldn’t be ruled out,” Velez said.
Copyright 2011 Collier County Publishing Company
All Rights Reserved