Ind., county must foot student’s TB treatment bill

FORT WAYNE, Ind. — Health officials say state and local agencies must foot the bill of treating a northeastern Indiana student diagnosed with a drug-resistant tuberculosis strain.

The Journal Gazette reports it will cost $250,000 in medication alone to treat the student in the first year of a two-year treatment regimen. State and county health officials will share the costs.

Fort Wayne-Allen County Board of Health spokesman John Silcox says the county must pay for treatment of highly infectious, communicable diseases like tuberculosis if the ailing person cannot pay those costs.

He says it’s unclear what other treatments or surgeries the student will need. That student is now in isolation and undergoing treatment.

No one else in contact with the student has been identified with active TB, but testing is ongoing.