San Diego County public health officials were notifying people who may have been at Father Joe's Villages sites from mid-January to early March they may have been exposed to tuberculosis, a serious lung bacteria infection that can lead to death.
The county said person tested recently tested positive for tuberculosis and may have used several services at Father Joe's Villages, including the inclement weather shelter, the San Diego Day Center, food services, employment and education services, and Village Health Center. The case prompted county health officials Tuesday to notify staff, volunteers and clients they may have been exposed to the disease between Jan. 14 to March 3.
TB is an airborne disease that is transmitted from person-to-person through inhalation of the bacteria from the air, the county said. People with active tuberculosis are often unaware they have the disease and may be contagious for several months before being diagnosed. Most people who are exposed to TB do not become infected.
"Symptoms of active TB include persistent cough, fever, night sweats and unexplained weight loss," said Dr. Wilma Wooten, county public health officer. "Most people who become infected after exposure to tuberculosis do not get sick right away.
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"This is called latent TB infection," she said. "Some who become infected with tuberculosis will become ill in the future, sometimes even years later, if their latent TB infection is not treated. Blood tests and skin tests are effective to determine whether someone has been infected."
A county spokesperson added that an infectious period for someone with TB is determined by a wide range of factors, like the duration of their symptoms, how evident the disease is in chest x-rays and the presence of TB bacteria in a person's septum.
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While the rate of TB is much higher among people who have experienced homelessness, 90% of people in the county who are diagnosed with TB have not been recently homeless.
According to the county Health and Human Services Agency, people experiencing homelessness are at increased risk for TB for a variety of reasons, including living conditions in congregate settings, challenges regarding access to healthcare and the presence of certain medical conditions that may be more common among people experiencing homelessness.
The number of people diagnosed with active TB in San Diego County has decreased since the early 1990s and has stabilized in recent years. There were 192 in 2020 and 201 people reported with active disease in 2021. Preliminary data shows 208 people were reported to have active TB disease in 2022. An estimated 175,000 people in San Diego County have latent TB infections and are at risk for developing active TB without preventive treatment, health officials said.
Tuberculosis can be deadly. It's one of the top two infectious disease killers in the world, according to the World Health Organization. In California, the disease has killed about 13% of people who have been diagnosed, according to the California Department of Public Health.
