CLASSMATES of a Clitheroe student who contracted tuberculosis (TB) will this week undergo chest x-rays to ensure the disease has not been passed on.

Only students in the same classes as the unnamed pupil will have full screenings, but all 600 pupils at Clitheroe Royal Grammar School's sixth form are to have skin tests.

The pupil was diagnosed prior to the Christmas holiday and is being treated with a course of antibiotics.

Treatment for the disease, caused by a bacterium called myciobacterium tuberculosis, must continue for six months.

Doctor John Astbury, consultant in health protection for the North West Health Protection Agency, said: "There was one case of TB in the sixth form at Clitheroe Royal Grammar School.

"We have to wait six weeks after diagnosis before carrying out screening and that will be going ahead this week.

"The school has written to the parents of all sixth form students notifying them about what has happened and sending appointment times for screenings.

"All of the immediate contacts with the student will be screened and vaccinated. Those in the sixth form who are not in the same classes will undergo Heaf testing which is a form of skin testing.

"We expect the risk to others to be less than one per cent."

A spokesman for Clitheroe Royal Grammar School's sixth form, in York Street, which is attended by pupils from across East Lancashire, said: "We are unable to comment on this. It is in the hands of the health protection agency."

TB has started spreading in recent years and at least two million people around the world die each year of the disease.

In Britain the number of new cases has been slowly rising from around 5,000 a year in the mid-80s to nearly 6,800 at the new millennium.

In East Lancashire last year there were just over 80 cases, two thirds of which were in the Blackburn, Hyndburn and Ribble Valley areas.

TB mainly affects the lungs and is most commonly spread through droplets in the air when an infected person coughs or sneezes.

A person with TB may not display symptoms but recognisable signs can include a cough that will not go away, weight loss, feeling tired, loss of appetite and coughing up blood.

Nationally the death rate from TB is around six per cent.

Dr Astbury said: "If people are healthy they generally make a full recovery from TB.

"The people who die are the elderly and the infirm."

More information on TB can be found at www.tbalert.org which is a UK charity dedicated to the disease.