Based on new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines, employees no longer need annual TB testing. The CDC's new guidelines no longer recommend routine annual TB testing for health care workers, and the "Tuberculin (TB) Skin Testing: for Health Care Personnel" policy has been updated to reflect the CDC's recommendations. The CDC made this new recommendation as a result of efforts that showed that the U.S. in general is low risk for TB infection, and healthcare workers are not developing TB infection at a rate that is different than the general population. Therefore, health care workers do not appear to be at higher risk than the general population and thus the need for routine annual testing is no longer justified.
Employees will continue to require TB screening on hire (to identify and encourage treatment of existing TB infection) and after a documented exposure (to identify new TB infection as a result of the exposure). Infection Prevention and Occupational Health continue to track exposure to cases of infectious tuberculosis, and Occupational Health will continue to contact any employee who needs TB testing related to an exposure.
Please note: a small subset of employees may still require regular TB testing secondary to specific research or animal care activities that they perform, and these individuals will be notified if that is the case.
Once again, routine annual TB testing is no longer required; therefore individuals will no longer receive notifications regarding annual testing nor will it be a compliance requirement to have annual testing done.
Please do not hesitate to contact the Occupational Health Clinic at occupational.health.clinic@vanderbilt.edu or 615-936-0955 with any questions you may have.
