Man Quarantined After Flying with TB on Two Trans-Atlantic Flights
Filed in archive Aviation News by Terah Shelton on May 29, 2007
Both were long trans-Atlantic flights, one from Atlanta to Paris on May 12 and the other one from Prague
to Montreal. The Centers for Disease Control recommended exams for crew members and passengers seated close to the infected man.The man told health officials he was not coughing during the flights. Tests indicated the amount of TB bacteria in him was low, so passengers are not considered to be at high risk of infection, said Dr. Martin Cetron, director of the CDC's division of global migration and quarantine.
The man had been told by health officials in early May that he had a form of TB that was resistant to first-line antibiotics and was advised not to travel to Europe. "He was told traveling is against medical advice," said Dr. Steven Katkowsky, director of the Fulton County Department of Health & Wellness.
Health officials said they don't know how the Georgia man was infected.
The government issued the quarantine after a CDC official reached the man by phone in Rome and told him not to take commercial flights, but he flew back to North America anyway. "He was told in no uncertain terms not to take a flight back," Cetron said.
Cetron reached the man once he was back in the United States. At that point, he voluntarily went to a New York hospital, then was flown by the CDC to the Atlanta hospital. He is not facing prosecution, health officials said.
The quarantine order was the first since 1963, when the government quarantined a patient with smallpox, according to the CDC.
The man, who went on the trip with his wife, also traveled within Europe, but CDC officials said they did not have information to release about whether the trips were by plane, train or other public transportation.
His wife tested negative for TB before the trip and is not considered a public health risk, health officials said.
CDC officials said they are concentrating on investigating the trans-Atlantic flights, when possibility of spread of the disease was greatest because he was in a confined space with other people for many hours.
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