- Hello Jeff -- This story gets more appalling as we leanr
more. What kind of a man goes ahead with a wedding with the deadliest
form of TB in history? He was aware that he had MDR TB so why expose his
bride to the disease. I think the author of the article was trying to
drum up sympathy for the "groom" but I felt no sympathy when
I saw his actions.
-
- Another part of the article I also found appalling was
the fact that he was put on a NO FLY list, and passport RED-FLAGGED, yet,
he was STILL able to get on an airplane! So much for Homeland security
and their NO FLY lists. Makes you wonder...
-
- I understand how he felt about the "public"...we
are just strangers sitting in rows on the aircraft. But continuing with
his wedding plans and exposing his wife, family, close friends, and
everyone at the wedding? He claims to be a highly-educated successful
man but he surely demonstrates no common sense. A case for attempted murder
seems possible.
-
- He should have been treated at home in Atlanta first...and
then planned a wedding. A College Degree does not make one "intelligent."
That Degree just says you know a little about the subject matter you studied.
Intelligent and successful? How sad, no common sense. His wife, if she
has intelligence, needs to be tested immediately.
-
- Patty
-
- Groom With TB Under Federal Quarantine
- By Mike Stobbe
- AP Medical Writer
- 5-30-7
-
- ATLANTA (AP) -- A man with a form of tuberculosis so
dangerous he is under the first U.S. government-ordered quarantine since
1963 had health officials around the world scrambling Wednesday to find
passengers who sat near him on two trans-Atlantic flights.
-
- The man told a newspaper he took the first flight from
Atlanta to Europe for his wedding, then the second flight home because
he feared he might die without treatment in the U.S.
-
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Julie
Gerberding said Wednesday that the CDC is working closely with airlines
to find passengers who may have been exposed to the rare, dangerous strain.
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.
-
- "Is the patient himself highly infectious? Fortunately,
in this case, he's probably not," Gerberding said. "But the other
piece is this bacteria is a very deadly bacteria. We just have to err on
the side of caution."
-
- Health officials said the man had been advised not to
fly and knew he could expose others when he boarded the jets from Atlanta
to Paris, and later from Prague to Montreal.
-
- The man, however, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
that doctors didn't order him not to fly and only suggested he put off
his long-planned wedding in Greece. He knew he had a form of tuberculosis
and that it was resistant to first-line drugs, but he didn't realize it
could be so dangerous, he said.
-
- "We headed off to Greece thinking everything's fine,"
said the man, who declined to be identified because of the stigma attached
to his diagnosis.
-
- He flew to Paris on May 12 aboard Air France Flight 385.
While in Europe, health authorities reached him with the news that further
tests had revealed his TB was a rare, "extensively drug-resistant"
form, far more dangerous than he knew. They ordered him into isolation,
saying he should turn himself over to Italian officials.
-
- Instead, the man flew from Prague to Montreal on May
24 aboard Czech Air Flight 0104, then drove into the United States at Champlain,
N.Y. He told the newspaper he was afraid that if he didn't get back to
the U.S., he wouldn't get the treatment he needed to survive.
-
- He is now at Atlanta's Grady Memorial Hospital in respiratory
isolation.
-
- A spokesman for Denver's National Jewish Hospital, which
specializes in respiratory disorders, said Wednesday that the man would
be treated there. It was not clear when he would arrive, spokesman William
Allstetter said.
-
- CDC officials have recommended immediate medical exams
for cabin crew members and passengers who sat within two rows of the man
on the flights.
-
- The other passengers are not considered at high risk
of infection because tests indicated the amount of TB bacteria in the man
was low, said Dr. Martin Cetron, director of the CDC's division of global
migration and quarantine.
-
- But Gerberding noted that U.S. health officials have
had little experience with this type of TB. It's possible it may have different
transmission patterns, she said.
-
- "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 said on ABC's "Good Morning America."
-
- "We've got to really look at the people closest
to him, get them skin tested."
-
- Dr. Howard Njoo of the Public Health Agency of Canada
said it appeared unlikely that the man spread the disease on the flight
into Canada. Still the agency was working with U.S. officials to contact
passengers who sat near him.
-
- Daniela Hupakova, a spokeswoman for the Czech airline
CSA, said the flight crew underwent medical checks and are fine. The airline
was contacting passengers and cooperating with Czech and foreign authorities,
she said. Health officials in France have asked Air France-KLM to provide
lists of passengers seated within two rows of the man, an airline spokeswoman
said on condition of anonymity according to company policy.
-
- The man told the Journal-Constitution he was in Rome
during his honeymoon when the CDC notified him of the new tests and told
him to turn himself in to Italian authorities to be isolated and be treated.
The CDC told him he couldn't 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.
-
- He told the newspaper he and his wife decided to sneak
back into the U.S. through Canada. He said he voluntarily went to a New
York hospital, then was flown by the CDC to Atlanta.
-
- He is not facing prosecution, health officials said.
-
- "I'm a very well-educated, successful, intelligent
person," he told the paper. "This is insane to me that I have
an armed guard outside my door when I've cooperated with everything other
than the whole solitary-confinement-in-Italy thing."
-
- CDC officials told The Associated Press they could not
immediately comment on the interview.
-
- Health officials said the man's wife tested negative
for TB before the trip and is not considered a public health risk. They
said they don't know how the Georgia man was infected.
-
- The quarantine order was the first since the government
quarantined a patient with smallpox in 1963, according to the CDC.
-
- Tuberculosis is caused by germs that are spread from
person to person through the air. It usually affects the lungs and can
lead to symptoms such as chest pain and coughing up blood. It kills nearly
2 million people each year worldwide.
-
- Because of antibiotics and other measures, the TB rate
in the United States has been falling for years. Last year, it hit an all-time
low of 13,767 cases, or about 4.6 cases per 100,000 Americans.
-
- Health officials worry about "multidrug-resistant"
TB, which can withstand the mainline antibiotics isoniazid and rifampin.
The man was infected with something even worse-"extensively drug-resistant"
TB, also called XDR-TB, which resists many drugs used to treat the infection.
-
- There have been 17 U.S. XDR-TB cases since 2000, according
to CDC statistics.
-
- ___
-
- Associated Press writers Malcolm Ritter in New York and
Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.
- Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
- Patricia A. Doyle DVM, PhD
- Bus Admin, Tropical Agricultural Economics
- Univ of West Indies
-
- Please visit my "Emerging Diseases" message
board at:
- http://www.emergingdisease.org/phpbb/index.php
- Also my new website:
- http://drpdoyle.tripod.com/
- Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa
- Go with God and in Good Health
|
