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Airline Passenger With Tuberculosis Under Federal Quarantine

Thu, 31 May '07

Unidentified Man "Didn't Know It Could Be So Dangerous"

The US government has ordered its first quarantine since a smallpox case in 1963. The patient is a man who has been diagnosed with a rare, severely drug-resistant form of tuberculosis, who boarded a commercial jet out of Atlanta earlier this month for a transatlantic trip to his wedding... another for his honeymoon... and yet another back to the US for treatment.

From the time he left Georgia, the man flew on seven different flights on three different airlines. Now health authorities around the world are scrambling to round up any passengers that may have had contact with the man for testing, said US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Julie Gerberding.

"There are two aspects to this," Gerberding said. "One is, is the patient himself highly infectious? Fortunately, in this case, he's probably not. But the other piece is this bacteria is a very deadly bacteria. We just have to err on the side of caution."

The man's itinerary included flights on: Air France flight 385 to Paris on May 12; Air France flight 1232 to Athens, Greece, on May 14; Olympic Air flight 560 to Thira Island, Greece, on May 16; Olympic Air flight 655 to Athens on May 21; Olympic Air flight 239 to Rome on May 21; Czech Airlines flight 727 to Prague, Czech Republic, on May 24; and Czech Airlines flight 0104 to Montreal, Canada on May 24.

He crossed over into the US from Canada at the Champlain, NY border crossing, fearful he wouldn't get necessary treatments if he didn't get back in the states, according to the Associated Press.

The man told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution doctors didn't specifically order him not to fly, as originally reported in some media, but only suggested he postpone his wedding in Greece.

The man was apparently diagnosed in Georgia and went ahead and flew to Paris for his wedding in Greece. He said he was in Rome on his honeymoon when the CDC contacted him with the news his TB was worse than initially thought and far more dangerous. CDC officials then ordered him to turn himself in to Italian health authorities for isolation and treatment.

It was then he was told he could not fly aboard commercial airliners.

"I thought to myself: You're nuts. I wasn't going to do that. They told me I had been put on the no-fly list and my passport was flagged," the man said.

Gerberding said US health officials have had little experience with the "extensively drug-resistant" form of TB. They're not even quite sure of this strain's transmission patterns.

"We're thankful the patient was not in a highly infectious state, but we know the risk of transmission isn't zero, even with the fact that he didn't have symptoms and didn't appear to be coughing," Gerberding told ABC's "Good Morning America."

CDC officials have also recommended medical exams for all pilots and cabin crew members.

Daniela Hupakova, a spokeswoman for the Czech airline CSA, said their flight crew have already been medically evaluated and tested and are "fine." She said the airline was contacting potentially affected passengers and cooperating fully with Czech and foreign authorities.

The other airlines have not reported on the status of their crew members.

Concern primarily surrounds passengers who were sitting within two rows of the man on the flights. Passengers beyond that perimeter are not considered to be at a high risk of infection, according to Dr. Martin Cetron, director of the CDC's division of global migration and quarantine, because tests indicated the amount of TB bacteria in the man was "low."

It is unlikely the disease was transmitted while the man was on the flight into Canada, said Dr. Howard Njoo of the Public Health Agency of Canada. But, the agency would still work with the US in contacting passengers who sat near him.

It is still unknown how the man acquired the infection in the first place; his wife has since tested negative. He said he knew he had a form of TB, but didn't know it could be so dangerous.

Tuberculosis is an airborne pathogen. According to the CDC, this particular strain of TB, extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR TB) "is a relatively rare type of multi drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB). It is resistant to almost all drugs used to treat TB. Because XDR TB is resistant to the most powerful first-line and second-line drugs, patients are left with treatment options that are much less effective and often have worse treatment outcomes."

There have been 17 XDR-TB cases in the US since 2000, according to CDC statistics.

"We've got to really look at the people closest to him, get them skin tested," Gerberding said. The man is currently at Atlanta's Grady Memorial Hospital in respiratory isolation and is not facing prosecution.







i read an article about this today in newsday. it kinda reminded me of the stand - stephen king. realistically, XDR-TB isn't so contagious.

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"Careful writing is deathly writing" - Charles Bukowski

i was reading in a paper that there are now 46 confirmed cases of this in south africa?

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you'll go to hell for what your dirty mind is thinking

He was on a no fly list and he still managed to fly?

shit i kept skipping my BCG vaccination thingy because I didn't want a scar on my arm

I just saw this on the news; they said he managed to get to every airport just before the "no fly" warning got there.
But when they scanned his passport at the Canada/New York border, an alert came up saying not to let him through, and they did anyway.

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His picture is plastered all over the media. Poor guy. But it's fucking scary how you can literally catch your death from some random stranger just by breathing the same air.

I think its fucked his doctor didn't let him know that he shouldn't be flying and that they didn't stop him when they seen his passport was flagged. They just let him go anyway!

What a self centered prick.

This guy knew better than most about the dangers. First, his father-in-law is a TB researcher at the CDC! That's what's really weird because the CDC gets reports of everyone here with TB, and considering he was family, why didn't the father-in-law do something considering this guy was flying to and from Europe with his daughter, not to mention scores of others he exposed?

Second, what a moron. His profession is as a personal injury lawyer! Dee Dee Dee! I hope every single person on those planes sues him, and that he is disbarred for ethical reasons.

He said that his reason for flying back to the states was that he was scared that he would die if he didn't. But he was diagnosed before the trip.

I hope that if he does get better, that he is prosecuted.

is this aboutthe guy whos kinda imprisoned and treated really badly
?
or another?
is this new?
i heard tb isnt nearly as contagious as we all think too
its contagious but not like THAAAT
theres been tb scares" in a school around here too tho
haha

What a complete and total tool!
"I was scared I wouldn't get treated"!!
Is that a reason to potentially infect others?
I hope he gets sued and prosecuted as well, people need to learn that if they have a contagious disease, they should CHECK WITH THEIR DOCTORS AND GOOGLE SHIT before doing anything major like this.

ABC News: EXCLUSIVE: TB Patient: 'I Really Believed I Wasn't Putting People at Risk'

In an exclusive interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer, tuberculosis patient Andrew Speaker said he never thought others were at risk for catching his deadly disease.

"I'm very sorry for any grief or pain that I have caused anyone," Speaker said from his isolation room in the National Jewish Hospital in Denver. "I think if people look at my life, that's not … not how I live my life."

Speaker, a 31-year-old lawyer from Atlanta, learned he had TB in January. In May, doctors realized his strain, known as XDR-TB, was extensively drug-resistant. He then boarded a commercial flight to Paris May 12, and returned from Europe 12 days later on a flight from Prague, Czech Republic, to Canada.

Speaker said he never thought he was sick enough to infect others. He felt fine two weeks ago, walking around, jogging and trying cases as usual. He told Sawyer he had a tape recording of a meeting with health officials that he said would confirm his view that it was OK to travel in his condition.

"I hope they understand, based on what I was told didn't think I was making that gamble," he said. "I truly believe that there is a misunderstanding of how we entered into all of this. I hope they understand that at every turn it was conveyed to me that my family, my wife, my daughter, no one was at risk. And that I was not contagious. And that I never would have put my family at risk and my daughter at risk."

Speaker: CDC Let Him Go, Then Abandoned Him

Doctors say they told Speaker not to travel. Speaker said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health organizations advised him against travel but didn't stop him.

Speaker's father-in-law, Bob Cooksey, is a CDC microbiologist specializing in the spread of TB and other bacteria. He said only that he gave Speaker "fatherly advice" when he learned the young man had contracted the disease.

"Everyone knew. … The CDC knew, doctors knew, Kaiser knew. They said, 'We would prefer you not go on the trip,'" he said. "And that's when my father said, 'OK, are you saying because he's a risk to anybody or are you simply saying it to cover yourself?' And they said, 'We have to tell you that to cover ourselves, but he's not a risk.'"

Speaker said after the CDC called him in Rome and told him to cancel his commercial fight plans, it didn't offer him any help. Speaker says it would have cost $100,000 to fly back on a noncommercial airline. In effect, he said, the CDC was walking away from him and his chance for treatment at the TB facility in Denver.

"Before I left, it was made clear to me in order to fight this I had one shot and that was here," he said about his chances for survival. "I had one shot at this and if I didn't get right treatment, CDC sends testing out here, so they can pick the right drugs to mix, and if I was somewhere where they got it wrong, that was it, they blew my last shot."

Looking back, Speaker realizes he may have been able to raise the $100,000 to charter a flight home. He said he didn't because he didn't think he was a health risk to others.

"In hindsight you can try … say maybe I could have planned something out, maybe could have raised money," he said. "[But] understand at this whole time everyone told me I'm not contagious and no threat to anyone."

Speaker boarded a plane back to the United States because he feared he would die in Europe.

"We said, 'Let's get home and get to Denver,'" he said about his and his wife's decision to leave Europe. "Both of us worried if I turned myself [in] the next day that's it. It's very real that I could have died there. … People told me if I was anywhere but Denver, I'll die."

What happened was a result of confusion, panic and a desire to stay alive, but never to hurt strangers or his family, Speaker said. He hopes the TB tests of his fellow passengers come back negative, and he said he wants them to know he is sorry.

"I feel awful. I've lived in state of constant fear and anxiety. I'm exhausted, for a week now. And to think that someone else is now feeling that, I wouldn't want anyone to feel that way -- it's awful," he said. "I just hope they can forgive me and understand that I really believed [i] wasn't putting people at risk because that's what the people told me."

it worked for some of the terrorists on 9-11, sure, why not this guy? Apparently the only people who get stopped because they're on no fly lists are people who are not actually terrorists and/or a threat to other people's health.

nice.

his doctor did tell him.

this is a different guy.

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I read about this in the post yesterday. He spent thirteen hours on a flight with what was it? I think they were searching desperately for forty plus people, for fear of infection. I don't think this is about to turn into an epidemic but if I were on that plane with that fucking prick and I knew he were sick and I knew that he knew he were sick and had no care for the well being of the other people surrounding him, I'dve flushed him mid-air. Yeah right he didn't know he was taking a risk. It's not like his disease is a blood disease or bone, he's moderately contagious. It'd take much less than cutting myself open and cutting someone else open and swapping blood or having sex with them or cutting them open and sucking the marrow out of their bones or rolling around in their piss and shit to get sick. He just has to breathe on you enough. And the illness is drug-resistant. I'dve stayed put and followed doctors orders until I knew exactly what was going on with me. That's like being a smoker on a plane with 39 non-smokers and lighting up a fag. Except a little worse.
Unless it was latent. Was it latent? Because I think it's near impossible if not impossible for him to spread it. God knows when it would become active though.

It’s just a coincidence the man infected with the rarest form of TB has a father in law that works in the center for disease control with the exact rare TB son in law contracted.

So many questions…

Why would someone go to his family members wedding risking infecting everyone at the wedding?

How did a man literally walk into the United States after being put on the No fly list and the No entry approval into the United States?

Why is it no one in the Center for Disease control department knows absolutely nothing about what happen and how it happened? Everyone just says “ I don’t know”

Why do the people in the Center for Disease control command very large salaries meanwhile they do not know what the hell is going on?

How can I get a job that pays big money and not know what the fuk I am doing?



And these same people want to keep Paris Hilton in Jail. You go figure...


Anyone know how Paris is doing lately?

If TB man was a Black man would he have been treated a little differently?

time to break out my burberry bird flu mask again....

I take back my "poor guy" comment. This guy sounds like a major tool.

The Burberry Bird Flu mask will not work against TB you must get the mask that makes you look like a duck...