Renton Boeing employee tests positive for TB

Six other employees are being tested for the infection

By The Renton Reporter Staff • December 18, 2019 1:30 am
Renton Boeing employee tests positive for TB

A Renton Boeing plant employee with active tuberculosis has required six more employees to be tested for the infection. But Public Health – Seattle and King County states that the risk of infection to others is low.

The worker was recently diagnosed with the disease, according to a post in Public Health Insider. The disease is much harder to spread than cold or flu, but is passed from person-to-person through the air. Active tuberculosis in the lungs can be spread through coughing and sneezing. It takes repeated and prolonged exposure in a confined indoor space, according to the post. For this reason, the six workers who were identified by Public Health as spending a long enough period of time with the sick coworker are at risk.

Public Health states that Boeing is reaching out to the six affected workers to notify them, the company will offer tuberculosis testing free of charge.

Other people who had “brief” exposure to the person are not believed to be at risk for infection and are not being tested. Boeing workers with additional questions should contact their primary healthcare provider, according to Public Health.

The person with active tuberculosis is receiving treatment, which takes six to nine months. Latent tuberculosis, which is dormant and differs from active, cannot spread to others and effects approximately 100,000 people in King County today, and 93 new cases were reported in 2018. While latent tuberculosis can’t spread, about one in 10 folks with the latent infection will develop the active disease. Any exposed workers who get identified with latent tuberculosis will likely receive treatment to prevent it from growing active later.

“Because King County is at a global crossroads, we need to be constantly vigilant to prevent the spread of TB,” the Public Health post states.

The news comes just days after Boeing announced it would be shutting down the Renton plant temporarily due to the 737Max being grounded by the Federal Aviation Administration for an extensive amount of time. No layoffs are expected for the 12,000 workers in the plant.