By Kim Bo-eun
A group of students and teachers at a cram school in Yangcheon-gu, western Seoul, have been infected with tuberculosis (TB), the Yangcheon-gu health center said Monday.
According to the center, some 20 students and teachers out of 145 people at the private academy tested positive for the disease over the weekend.
“Signs of an outbreak of the disease at the academy first appeared around Aug. 21,” said the head of the center.
Tuberculosis is an infectious disease which mainly affects the lungs and causes chronic coughing, fever and weight loss. TB patients spread the virus through coughing or sneezing.
The Korea Center for Disease Control and Prevention, suspecting infection, has looked into prior outbreaks, and has findings suggesting possible cases of infection.
“Two patients of the same age group were students diagnosed with TB who had been reported to the health center earlier this month,” said an official at the center. It also found that there had been a TB patient in March this year.
Health authorities have taken measures to isolate the students and teachers who tested positive from their families and to test their family members.
In May, there was an outbreak of TB at a high school in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province. Four students were diagnosed with the disease while some 120 others tested positive.
“We cautioned the students and teachers who have not been affected by the disease about attending the academy, as there is a possibility of them becoming infected,” said the head of the health center. “But with the impending college entrance exam, some of them are still coming to take classes there.”
The disease had been prevalent when the country was poor with few notable outbreaks since but the incident at the academy is the second case of a group infection this year.