News / Health & Wellness
Government quarantines a man with Tuberculosis (TB)- more maybe infected
The U.S. government has ordered a man with a serious case of tuberculosis under its first quarantine since 1963. The man flew from Atlanta to Europe to attend his wedding, and then flew back to the United State to seek treatment. Health officials are frantically searching for the passengers on both of his flights because they say people could have been exposed and possibly infected.
"Is the patient himself highly infectious? Fortunately, in this case, he's probably not," Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director 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 had seen a doctor and knew that he had TB. Health Officials are saying that the man was aware that he could expose other people if he flew, and therefore was advised not to fly. The man denies that he was ordered by doctors not to fly and he states that he knew he wasn’t responding to drugs, but he didn’t know that TB was so dangerous. "We headed off to Greece thinking everything's fine," said the man.
On May 12 he flew to Paris where he was told that he had a very rare form of the disease. He was warned that it was very dangerous, and was ordered to isolation. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told him that he couldn’t fly on commercial airlines. He refused to listen and he flew from Prague to Montreal on May 24. He then drove to Champlain, New York. He said that he wanted to get back to the United States for treatment, because he was scared he would die if he didn’t. He said that he and his wife had to sneak back in to the United States by way of Canada. "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.
The man refused to be identified. He was admitted into Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. He will be treated at the National Jewish hospital in Denver. All crew members and passengers sitting within 2 rows of him are being urged to have an examination as soon as possible.
Tuberculosis is spread through the air and hits the lungs. Symptoms include coughing up blood and chest pains.
