County heath officials Thursday warned that current or former residents, employees, and visitors of a La Jolla nursing home may have been exposed to tuberculosis.
The potential exposure concerns The Cove at La Jolla Post-Acute Care Center, located at 7160 Fay Ave., with the dates of potential exposure ranging from Feb. 17 to Sept. 16.
With health officials saying this exposure appears to involve drug-resistant tuberculosis, some medications typically used to prevent the lung disease might not be effective.
Anyone who believes they may have been exposed was advised to call the County Tuberculosis Control Program at 619-692-8621.
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Ankita Kadakia, the county's interim public health officer, said in a statement that symptoms of tuberculosis include persistent cough, fever, night sweats, and unexplained weight loss.
Others may have a latent TB infection, meaning they may not get sick until a later time, "sometimes even years later," she said, if it goes untreated.
"For people who think they may have been exposed, blood tests and skin tests are an effective way to determine an infection," Kadakia said.
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Those who don't have symptoms but test positive for TB are likely to have a latent TB infection and were advised to get a chest X-ray and talk to a medical provider, the county said.
TB cases in San Diego County have been on the rise since 2020, with 243 people reported with active TB last year. County health officials said an estimated 175,000 in the county have latent TB infections and said that without treatment, 5% to 10% of those people are at risk of developing active TB disease.
