Should we have school employees get TB skin tests yearly, especially food service workers?
The Mississippi Department of Health, Office of Communicable Diseases has sited the recommendations for Targeted Tuberculin Testing from the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), June 2000 issue published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as follows: “Screening of low-risk persons and testing for administrative purposes (e.g., certification of school teachers) should be replaced by targeted testing. ” Targeted testing focuses on persons or groups at high risk for TB. Unless the school system is in an area of possible TB clusters or high incidence of TB, annual TB testing is not recommended. TB skin testing is discouraged for those at low risk for developing TB disease. This also applies to food service personnel.
