Tuberculosis Testing
TB test are given on Wednesdays from 8-11:30 & 1-4:30, cost is $10. Effective September 1, 2020, the cost for a TB Skin Test will increase to $15.
Tests are then read on Friday mornings between 8-9 a.m.
Tuberculosis Control
Diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up services for patients with active tuberculosis, and their contacts, are provided at Sweetwater-Nolan County Health Department. Medications are available when needed to positive reactors not associated with an active case of tuberculosis. These patients must present with a negative chest x-ray and a prescription from their private physician for the medications.
Tuberculosis Facts
Tuberculosis is a Global Emergency
- More people are dying of TB today than ever before.
- Worldwide, TB kills 8,000 people per day.
- TB is the biggest killer of young people and adults in the world today.
- One third of the world’s population is infected with TB.
- If a person is sick with TB that person is likely to infect another 10 to 15 people in just one year.
- TB sends many self-sustained families into poverty.
- Multiple Drug Resistant (MDR) TB is at least 100 times harder to cure than regular TB disease.
- MDR can develop when patients get the wrong drugs, drug supply is unreliable or patients stop taking their medicines because they feel better.
TB and Children
- Worldwide, over 100,000 children will die from TB this year.
- Hundreds of thousands of children will become TB orphans this year.
- MDR TB in poor countries can be a death sentence.
TB and Women
- Worldwide, TB is the single biggest killer of young women.
- Over one million women will die needlessly from TB this year.
TB and HIV
- TB accounts for one third of AIDS deaths.
- If a person is HIV positive, that person is 30 times more likely to develop active TB.
