Health Curriculum: Unit 3--Main text: Grades 7-11

Fighting Disease:
Health At The End Of The Millennium
Another Wired Curriculum from The United Nations CyberSchoolBus

	Introduction
	How They Work
	How They Spread
	Poverty and Disease
	Prevention
	Immunization

Unit 3
Transmission of Infectious Diseases

MAIN TEXT
(GRADES 7-11)

In January 1995, five bus drivers serving elementary and high school districts in Long Island, New York, were diagnosed with tuberculosis. The immediate reaction was to identify and test hundreds of students who had traveled on these buses. There was a fear that the students had been exposed to the tuberculosis bacillus.

Tuberculosis is highly infectious. It is transmitted through droplets of moisture produced when someone coughs or sneezes. The microbes stay in the air for hours. It was natural to worry about the students. Especially since new strains of tuberculosis have emerged, strains that are resistant to treatment.

In the event, it turned out 40 students had been infected with tuberculosis - possibly, though it is hard to tell for certain, from the exposure in the bus.

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