Diseases

sssteel

We have an employee who was just diagnosed with Tuberculosis. One week ago he called in sick and went to the doctor. During this visit the doctor said he had a cold and told him to go home and rest. A couple of days later he went back to the doctor because he hadn’t gotten any better and this is when they tested him for TB. He had not returned to work between his doctors appointments. We are a steel warehouse and this employee has come into contact with many other employees and could possibly have infected them. My question is what should we do about this? My first thought was to have the other employees in his department tested for TB but are we allowed to do this? We don’t want to do not want this employee to sue us because we revealed confidential information. If any of you have ever had to deal with a situation like this please let me know. We aren’t sure what the best course of action is.

stilldazed

TB in Florida is managed through county health departments. If it is in your state as well, contact your local health department for instructions on how to proceed. Specific steps will be determined by the level of disease in the one recently diagnosed, your local area's (county or state) level of overall exposure, and other environmental circumstances unique to your region.

If your state has tuberculosis-related legislation at the state level, there may be enough instruction in it to point you in a direction. Otherwise, call or check your state's Dept of Health, or contact CDC for some quick guidance.

davids

We are a city and recently had a situation where several police officers were exposed to TB. As the exposure was on the job, we notified our workers' compensation carrier. All employees were notified and offered testing. They had the right to decline testing.