KC officials urge TB tests at building

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Health officials are encouraging hundreds of workers and visitors of a downtown office building to get tested for tuberculosis after an infectious person spent time there.

The Kansas City Health Department estimates about 220 people work in the Traders on Grand office building and said anyone who spent more than eight consecutive hours inside the building between November 2003 and Feb. 13, 2004, should get tested.

"Although we feel the risk to the occupants of this building is low, we feel this clinic is the prudent thing to do," said Ron Griffin, manager of the Health Department's communicable disease control division.

Griffin said the infected person, now being treated with antibiotics, had visited the building for extended periods of time before the condition was diagnosed.

Building manager Greg Norris said the Health Department contacted him Friday about the case.

"We're working hand in hand with them to make sure there aren't any problems," he said.

Tuberculosis is an airborne bacterial disease that usually attacks the lungs. The bacteria spreads when an infected person coughs, sneezes or talks. Although most TB infections heal without being noticed, the disease can lie dormant and flare into a severe illness years later.

The Health Department will provide a free, nine-month course of antibiotics that virtually eliminates the infection to anyone testing positive for TB.

Twenty-eight cases of active tuberculosis were reported in the city last year, Griffin said. Four of those people died.