A recent revelation at the Board of Health’s August 7 meeting regarding five cases of Tuberculosis at the Mill City’s Emergency Migrant Shelter has some asking whether there’s cause for concern.

However, Lowell Public Health officials tell InsideLowell there is no threat to public health.

Board Chair Jo-Ann Keegan and Lowell Director of Health and Human Services Lisa Golden say the five cases are “latent” (not active), meaning they are not contagious.

Neither Keegan or Golden indicated any cause for alarm, adding that people are screened when they arrive, which led to the discovery. They also indicated an all out push to vaccinate incoming students to the system before schools open at the end of the month.

Golden recommends “if anyone has questions, they can call to talk to the Public Health Nurse Manager. She is great with TB”

Further information was made available by the Public Health Nurse Manager, Nicole Chauncey, who wrote:

“When most people think of TB, they think of someone who is very sick and may be able to spread the illness to others. This is NOT the kind of TB we are talking about. The other kind of TB is called latent TB infection, also called LTBI. With this kind of TB, the person has the TB bacteria in their body but they are contained by the immune system. They are not sick and cannot spread the bacteria to others. This kind of TB is very common and it is estimated that about 25% of the global population has it. The people who had a positive blood test result at this screening most likely have this form of TB because they have no symptoms.”

The CDC reports 9,615 TB cases across the country in 2023, an increase of 1,295 cases (16%) compared with the 8,320 cases reported in 2022. The 2023 figure marks an 8% increase compared with the 2019 prepandemic case count (8,895), and the highest number of cases reported since 2013 (9,556).

In Massachusetts, 2023 saw 224 residents diagnosed with tuberculosis, an incidence rate of 3.2 per 100,000. That number is a 46% increase from 2022.

According to Keegan, those statistics cite active cases of tuberculosis, and again stressed that the five cases at the shelter are not active, and therefore can’t be spread person to person.

The individuals testing positive are receiving preventative medication to keep the bacterial disease from becoming infectious.