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Fugitive TB patient says sorry
01/06/2007 07:28 - (SA)
Washington - A tuberculosis patient who turned fugitive in order to continue with wedding and honeymoon plans despite warnings not to travel, has apologised to the fellow airline passengers he may have endangered, ABC
television reported on Friday.
Andrew Speaker, a 31-year-old Atlanta lawyer, says he has
tape recordings to prove his assertions that he was only
advised not to travel, not clearly forbidden to do so.
Speaker touched off an international health alert, a rare
federal isolation order and a congressional investigation when
he and his new bride fled across Europe, sneaked onto a flight
to Canada and then drove across the border to the United States
to avoid health officials.
Speaker is now being held in near-isolation at a specialist
hospital in Denver for treatment for his infection, known as
extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis or XDR TB.
Health experts are tracking down 100 or so people who spent
eight hours or longer close to Speaker on two trans-Atlantic
flights to encourage them to be tested for possible TB
exposure.
Federal isolation order
Officials at the US Centres for Disease Control and
Prevention say a federal isolation order - the first issued in
44 years - will likely be transferred to local Colorado
authorities.
The US Homeland Security Department said it was
investigating how Speaker slipped through borders despite
orders to detain him.
ABC said Speaker defended his actions and apologises for
them in an interview to be aired later on Friday.
"He says he wants everyone to know how he made the
decision, why he felt so strongly that it was not endangering
anybody else and (is) also asking forgiveness of those onboard
who are now having to be tested," interviewer Diane Sawyer
said.
Not especially infectious
CDC officials and an infectious disease expert at National
Jewish Medical Centre, where Speaker is being treated, said he
was not especially infectious. The Mycobacterium tuberculosis
bacilli were difficult to find in his sputum, he is not
coughing and he appears to be in good health.
In an ironic twist, a veteran TB researcher at the CDC,
Robert Cooksey, confirmed that he is Speaker's new
father-in-law. Cooksey denied being the source of the TB that
infected Speaker and Speaker's doctor said it is not known
where the personal injury lawyer, an avid traveller, became
infected.
Homeland Security Department spokesperson Russ Knocke said it
is also not clear how Speaker evaded border controls. The CDC
had notified Homeland Security about Speaker and asked that he
be detained if he turned up.
Knocke said all officers at all ports of entry into the
United States had Speaker's name. "The information was in our
system, so that the second a passport would have been swiped it
would have popped (up)," Knocke said in a telephone interview.
He said an internal investigation was under way.
- Reuters
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