A meeting with Plant High parents was held Tuesday night to calm fears after a person at the school was diagnosed with tuberculosis.
Students and faculty who had close contact with that person got a letter saying they needed to be screened.
Dr. Douglas Holt, the Director of Department of Health in Hillsborough County, who's also an infectious disease physician, answered questions from parents.
"That definitely caused some concerns with a family member of mine that is COPD and we have another family member that is positive for cancer. So that being said we needed to know how far spread it was,” said Kim Bell, a parent.
Bell's freshman daughter is one of about 150 people, both students and staff, who are being advised to be tested for tuberculosis.
Parents asked why health officials are waiting until February 17th to offer skin tests. Holt explained it takes that long for TB to show up in a test. He also talked about why they are only advising a certain number of people get tested.
"We go in, we look at those children who did share a class, anyone perhaps the child identifies they spent a lot of time outside of school with, anything like that we use that to recommend who to get tested,” Holt said. “That is a recommendations that tries to include many more than probably really even have much of a risk but we want to be on the safe side."
Parents also wanted to know how likely the airborne illness has spread around. Holt said that chance is low and requires repeated exposure in close-quarters. He said it's also treatable.
Bell said she feels a little better -- at least, in learning more about the illness.
"Knowledge is always power. It definitely helps to be educated,” she said. "To me it's irrelevant who it is. It could happen to any one of us. It could happen to any one of our children, it could happen anywhere. It could happen on a subway or a bus."
She said she may get her daughter tested an additional time even sooner than health officials recommend for her own peace of mind.