| ■ TB Case Prompts Warning to Jet Passengers | 07.06.04 |
| TUESDAY, May 29 (HealthDay News) -- U.S. health officials are looking for airline passengers who may have been exposed by a fellow passenger to a highly drug-resistant and dangerous strain of tuberculosis. The passenger had been diagnosed with tuberculosis and advised not to travel. But on May 12, he flew from Atlanta to Paris, continued on to Prague, then took a return flight to Montreal on May 24, before driving back into the United States. "On May 13th, the patient departed on Air France fight 385 from Atlanta and arrived in Paris," Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said during an afternoon teleconference. "The patient returned in Czech Air flight 0104 to Canada, then entered the United States by car." After returning to the United States, the man was contacted by the CDC and asked to check himself into the isolation ward of a New York City hospital, which he did. On Monday, he was flown home in a CDC plane to Atlanta, where he remains hospitalized. The man was infected with "extensively drug-resistant" TB, also called XDR-TB, which resists many drugs used to treat the infection. |