” We only talk about this “, sighs a teacher from the Louis-Loucheur vocational school in Roubaix (North) who was hoping, at the start of the school year in January, for precise information on the cases of active and latent tuberculosis detected in this establishment which trains in construction trades. Like all the teachers interviewed by The worldshe prefers not to give her name. “We go fishing for information on our own, we are alerted by colleagues on preventive treatment because they have detected latent tuberculosis and we count the students hospitalized in December or on treatment. We arrive at four active tuberculosis cases and thirteen latent cases on the student side and five latent cases on the adult side”, she says.
Figures that circulate and worry: “We are still awaiting official confirmation. Why this silence that feeds psychosis? »asks another teacher, adding that “Everyone is on edge. A colleague was hospitalized. He stopped his preventive treatment because of the side effects. The latent form is not nothing when you have to take antibiotics for three or six months..
During the All Saints holidays, the teachers had learned through the exchange of private messages that two of them were positive for latent tuberculosis as well as five students. Screening was set up in October 2022 by the tuberculosis control center (CLAT) in Tourcoing (North) for pupils and teachers in the class of a high school student who declared the disease in April. “It took six months for this first screening to be done. Given the risks of contamination, it is unlikely! »is indignant another teacher.
It seems that there was a failure in the transmission of information between the CLAT of Lille, where the young patient lives in a home, and that of Tourcoing, on which the Roubaix high school depends. Olivier Robineau, infectious disease specialist and tuberculosis specialist at CLAT in Tourcoing, confirms that his center was only notified “at the end of September of this case of bacilliferous tuberculosis, therefore contagious”. “From there, we investigated in the first circle. Everything was done on time”, he assures.
“No info, no advice”
“The problem is that, from the beginning, our headmaster didn’t keep us informed of anything. No info, no advice. Very worried, we asserted our right of withdrawal at the start of All Saints’ Day to get a screening of the whole high school”, testifies a teacher. During these two days, the students were sent home or to their homes, because, at Lycée Louis-Loucheur, there are many unaccompanied minors, “coming from countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, with foci of latent tuberculosis”observes Doctor Robineau.
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