The provincial sanitary inspector of the Warmia-Masuria region, Janusz Dzisko, told Poland's PAP news agency that the teacher had suffered from respiratory problems for some time and has now been diagnosed with tuberculosis.
He confirmed that the teacher was infectious.
Officials are now identifying all those who may have been exposed.
“We are determining the people who had contact with the teacher. This concerns pupils, other teachers and anyone else who had contact with the sick person,” Dzisko said, adding that the group is likely to be large because of the nature of her work.
Parents at the school told reporters that several hundred people, including pupils, staff and children attending private lessons, could be referred for testing, although the school has declined to comment and has only said it is cooperating with health services.
The case comes as a new regional report points to growing tuberculosis risks for children.
According to the 2025 “Tuberculosis surveillance and monitoring in Europe” report from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the World Health Organization’s Europe office, children under 15 accounted for 4.3 percent of new and relapsed tuberculosis cases in the wider European region in 2023, a rise of about 10 percent compared with the previous year.
The same share was reported in the European Union and European Economic Area, marking the third consecutive annual increase.
The report says that more than 172,000 people in the region developed tuberculosis or had a relapse in 2023, while deaths declined at a slower pace than before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The authors warn that cuts to global health aid could lead to a resurgence of the disease and note that in one in five child cases in the EU and EEA it is unknown whether treatment was completed, which may increase the risk of drug-resistant tuberculosis.
In Mrągowo, Dzisko said that parents of pupils who may have been exposed will be informed directly by the regional branch of the State Sanitary Inspection (Sanepid).
Family doctors in the publicly funded primary health care system (POZ) will also receive information about exposed children registered at their practices.
“It will be up to the doctors to decide how to diagnose the pupils,” Dzisko said. He noted that there are many methods to check for tuberculosis infection, including genetic tests, and that sanitary services will focus on identifying the people who need to contact their doctors.
He appealed to parents to take these notifications seriously and have their children examined.
Health authorities in the region have also recently confirmed a case of tuberculosis in a guarded center for foreigners in the town of Kętrzyn.
Other residents of the center and Polish Border Guard officers working there will be examined.
According to Dzisko, new cases of tuberculosis continue to be detected in Poland, most often among people facing severe social difficulties, including homelessness.
Tuberculosis is an infectious disease that can affect almost any organ, but most often attacks the lungs. Infection usually occurs through close and prolonged contact in enclosed spaces with a person who coughs, spits, talks or laughs while carrying the bacteria, which then circulate in the air and can be inhaled.
Typical symptoms include a cough lasting at least three weeks without improvement, fever, night sweats, weakness, fatigue, loss of appetite, weight loss, coughing up blood, chest pain and shortness of breath.
A vaccine against tuberculosis was introduced in 1921, and in Poland vaccination of children against the disease is compulsory.
(rt/gs)
Source: PAP