SIXTH formers and staff at a North Yorkshire school are being offered screening for TB, following the diagnosis of a case in a student.

The 236 sixth form students at Easingwold School will be given an interview and a skin test on the forearm, while staff will be offered chest x-rays, because skin tests are not effective at detecting TB in adults.

Pupils in other years, along with the sixth formers, are also being offered the BCG jab to help vaccinate them against the disease, after undergoing a skin test to check they are not already immune.

The Evening Press revealed earlier this month how an unidentified pupil - thought to be a female sixth former - had contracted pulmonary tuberculosis.

Health chiefs then defended their decision not to offer routine BCG (Bacillus Calmette Guerin) jabs for schoolchildren, saying its effectiveness was limited in areas such as North Yorkshire, where the illness was uncommon.

The Health Protection Agency said today that indications suggested this was an isolated case, with the student responding well to treatment.

No more cases had emerged, and the screening was being offered as a precaution.

Drs Ebere Okereke and Louise Coole, consultants in communicable disease control at the Health Protection Agency, said in a statement that the form of tuberculosis at Easingwold was a disease of the lungs, which could be passed from person to person, usually when an affected person was coughing.

It was not known how the pupil contracted the illness, but the case was definitely not bovine (cattle-related) TB.

"It is important to get the timing right when investigating TB, and screening cannot be carried out too early," they said.

"The recommended time for screening is six weeks, at the earliest, after contact with a case of TB."

They said the North Yorkshire Health Protection Unit, together with Selby and York Primary Care Trust, were following national and local guidelines in managing this case.

Doctors do not expect to find further cases.

Parents were told they would be given a detailed timetable for the vaccination sessions, which would take place in the school.

Updated: 10:30 Thursday, April 01, 2004