By RICARDO WELLS 

Tribune Staff Reporter

rwells@tribunemedia.net

HEALTH and education officials were called in at Garvin Tynes Primary School after an errant social media post suggested the school was concealing a tuberculosis outbreak, leading to mass panic among parents who showed up in droves to collect their children yesterday.

The fears prompted Minister of Health Dr Duane Sands to hold a press conference to dispel misinformation about the spread of TB.

Dr Sands said preliminary results of recent screening at Garvin Tynes indicate that 38 students have tested negative; 46 teachers have been tested with two positive, 40 negative and two results not yet read; 12 parents tested with one positive, 10 negative and one not yet read; and 22 in administration and support staff tested with three positive.

“I assure the public that the staff from the Ministry of Health will complete the screening exercise at Garvin Tynes Primary School and those students, teachers, administrators and support staff who test positive will be given additional tests as needed to determine whether they have the disease,” Dr Sands said yesterday. “It is therefore critical for students to participate in the screening programme.”

Over the course of four hours at the school, parents and various members of staff could be seen arguing near the entrance of the school’s compound.

Those engaged by reporters claimed they were made aware of the issue by hearsay reports, and when they showed up to the school, heard varying claims from administrators.

Several parents said they were told a second-grade student was being treated in hospital for TB.

They said they heard as a result of that reported case, students enrolled in the same class, all teachers and all support staff were subsequently tested for TB.

The parents said the circumstances were not made public immediately, and that some children were tested without the consent of their parents.

Ultimately, police, health officials, Dr Sands and Minister of Education Jeff Lloyd were called in to help de-escalate tensions.

Most parents were restricted from removing their children from the school, but were invited to sit through a meeting with school and government officials.

Following that meeting, Dr Sands addressed reporters outside of the school, where he dismissed the social media reports as “fake news” and clarified the specifics of the issue.

According to Dr Sands, public health officials have commenced screenings of people at the school after a possible case was identified.

The Elizabeth MP insisted that no one at the school, child or adult, has, to date, tested positive for TB.

“For the record, there is no outbreak of TB at Garvin Tynes Primary,” he said, calling the “hysteria” that ensued yesterday, unwarranted.

Dr Sands said: “As occurred at R M Bailey and other places, there is a possible case of a student at Garvin Tynes and what we are doing is a routine public health screening of children and teachers and staff to determine whether or not anybody has been exposed to tuberculosis.”

He added: “So it was R M Bailey, it was the detention centre, Eleuthera; you had the issues in Exuma (and) I expect next week, next month, we will have other places.”

There has been much public concern regarding TB in recent months as accounts have surfaced of hundreds of individuals being exposed to the disease. However, Dr Sands has been steadfast that these reports are no cause for alarm.

Addressing the recent uptick in screenings and confirmed exposure yesterday, Dr Sands maintained that the Bahamas, when compared to many of its regional counterparts, has managed to keep its rates of TB extremely low.

He said: “In most places across the world you could have instances as high as 30, 40, 50 per cent; the Bahamas is way down as one per cent. We want to keep it that way. But in order to keep it that way, we have to do aggressive public health screenings.

“So if we identify a test case or a suspicious case, our nurses are in the street; they are going into your church, they are coming into your school, they are coming in to your home to interview people, to examine them, to make sure that the public is safe.

“These are quiet warriors, they are out there doing what they have to do and this is what was happening here.

“Unfortunately, somebody is sending out the fake news that, oh, there is an outbreak of TB, which there isn’t.”

Dr Sands also noted that in cases similar to the one seen at Garvin Tynes, public health officials are permitted to test a minor without the permission from their parents. He said in circumstances like the one seen, by law, overall public health supersedes the need for a request and subsequent authorisation of a parent.

Dr Sands said: “In general, we will get permission from the parent to test, but the laws allow testing without consent. Okay, so, for informational purposes and educational purposes so that everyone is on the same page, yes, we would in general ask permission.”

He added: “…. But the law permits, for maintaining the public’s health, that you can do what is necessary to ensure the public’s safety. And that means testing for infectious diseases.”

Nonetheless, Dr Sands did issue an apology to any parent whose child may have been tested without permission.

Last month health officials screened more than 3,000 residents in Eleuthera for TB.

Of the lot, approximately 100 persons were confirmed to have been exposed to TB. Further to that, of the 100, only four were categorised as active cases, meaning at risk to transmit the disease.