When I was a kid growing up in San Antonio, Texas, my uncle worked at the TB Hospital there.
It was a large, imposing Grey looking building with hundreds of patients.
Most of the TB hospitals closed down a long time ago. They just weren't needed anymore once a vaccine for the disease was widely used.
That's why when the news came out this week about two Byrd High School students infected with TB, I was surprised. It just seems like it's a disease of the past.
However, with a little research, I found there were 200 reported cases in Louisiana in 2010. 25 of those were in Northwest Louisiana and half of those were in Caddo Parish.
Tuberculosis can be effectively treated. It should not again become the rampant disease it once was in our country.
But these two cases in high school students in Shreveport are a reminder of what was once a widespread medical emergency; which now, because of advances in health care is something quite uncommon.
That's why when two students test positive it makes the news. I'm James Smith.
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