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Plane passengers in TB scare
31/05/2007 12:27 - (SA)
Atlanta - Health officials in North America and Europe sought passenger lists for two trans-Atlantic airline flights in their effort to find about 80 people who sat near a man infected with a dangerous drug-resistant form of tuberculosis.
Authorities also disclosed on Wednesday that the man was on several flights between various European locales over the course of two weeks earlier this month. Passengers lists for those flights were also being tracked down, they said.
"The investigation is just beginning. It's very challenging," said Dr Martin Cetron, director of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention's division of global migration and quarantine.
The man, who is under the first US government-ordered quarantine since 1963, told a newspaper he flew from Atlanta to Greece for a wedding and then travelled to Italy for a honeymoon. Later he flew back to North America because he feared he might die without treatment in the United States.
"Is the patient himself highly infectious? Fortunately, in this case, he's probably not," CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding said. "But the other piece is this bacteria is a very deadly bacteria. We just have to err on the side of caution."
The man continues to feel well and shows no symptoms, Cetron said.
CDC officials are concentrating on the trans-Atlantic flights, when the likelihood of spreading the disease was greatest because he was in a confined space with other people for hours.
The CDC was trying to contact 27 crew members from the two trans-Atlantic flights for testing and about 80 passengers who sat in the five rows surrounding the man.
CDC officials said they are working closely with airlines. Health officials in France said they have asked Air France-KLM for passenger lists, and the Italian Health Ministry said it is tracing the man's movements.
Advised not to fly
Health officials said the man had been advised not to fly and knew he could expose others when he boarded the jets. He had a supply of masks to wear for the protection of other passengers, but it is not clear whether he donned them, Cetron said.
The man told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that doctors did not order him not to fly and only suggested he put off his long-planned wedding. He knew he had a form of tuberculosis and that it was resistant to commonly used drugs, but he did not realise until he was already in Europe that it could be so dangerous, he said.
"We headed off to Greece thinking everything's fine," he told the newspaper. The newspaper did not identify him at his request, because of the stigma attached to his diagnosis.
He flew to Paris on May 12 aboard Air France Flight 385, also listed as Delta Air Lines codeshare Flight 8517.
He and his bride took then took four more flights within Europe, flying from Paris to Athens on May 14; from Athens to Thira Island on May 16; from Mykonos Island to Athens on May 21; and from Athens to Rome on May 21.
- AP
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