Tuberculosis outbreak at San Francisco high school halts in-person classes

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — A third confirmed active case of tuberculosis is forcing Archbishop Riordan High School in San Francisco to cancel classes on Friday and halt in-person classes next week. Many sporting events have also been canceled.

Students and teachers are now in the midst of the alarming outbreak.

“Yeah, you know it’s kind of crazy because it reminds me a bit of COVID,” said Julia O’Neill, a student at Riordan High School.

In a letter to families at Riordan, the school president announced that next week, teachers will be posting student assignments online. From February 9-20, the school will move to a hybrid option where students who test negative will be allowed to attend classes on campus.

“I’m okay with it because Riordan is trying their best to make sure that we’re safe,” said freshman Emma O’Neill. “We’re having online school for like a week, so everyone can get their tests, which I think is a really good decision to make.”

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School leadership is working with the city’s public health department on contact-tracing. They hope to get everyone tested by February 13.

In addition to the three active TB cases, they’ve already identified 50 cases of latent infection, meaning the individuals are infected but have no symptoms.

As for being worried, the students who spoke with ABC7 News said they feel safe.

“A tiny bit, I know the school has been keeping everyone informed,” said senior Ashling Greene.

The school’s first case of TB was back in November, but then came the holiday break.

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“The problem with TB is it can take a long time to incubate in some people, anywhere from two to 10 weeks,” said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease expert at UCSF. “What might have happened is they checked a lot of back in November, and some people were maybe falsely negative, but it hadn’t incubated yet, and then they got active disease maybe over the holidays.”

Dr. Chin-Hong says there are about 100 cases of TB in San Francisco each year, and that in the U.S., there aren’t enough cases to merit vaccinations.

“You have these three people in the right conditions in a school where students are studying and learning for hours a day in close contact, they’re laughing, talking, singing, playing sports. It can be transferred even more easily than someone living in a household and don’t go out that many places.”

Public health officials plan to reassess test results every eight weeks until the outbreak is deemed over.

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