Tuberculosis-infected pair to return to Taiwan

Arrangements have been made for two infectious tuberculosis patients who illegally traveled to China to return to Taiwan for further medical treatment, said the Center for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday.
The patients, a married couple surnamed Lee, traveled on July 21 from Taiwan to Nanjing in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu via Hong Kong, onboard Dragon Airlines flight KA435 and Dragonair flight KA810.
The husband, who has multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), and the wife, who has infectious TB, were tracked down by Chinese health authorities at a hotel in the northern part of Jiangsu Province July 26, and escorted the next day by Chinese quarantine officials to a hospital in Nanjing.
Per the couple's request, the CDC and the Chinese health authorities have agreed to withhold from public disclosure the couple's mode of transport, the route they are taking to Taiwan, and their departure time, said Chou Jih-haw, CDC deputy diretor.
In a letter to all 276 passengers and 11 crew members who flew from Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan to Hong Kong on the same plane as the couple did, Steve H. S. Kuo, director-general of the CDC said Saturday his office will take responsibility for the medical treatment of any of the passengers who may have been infected with the disease.
The passengers include 270 Taiwanese, three Dutch, one Indian, one American, and one Japanese.
30/07/07 China Post, Taiwan

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Categories: Foreign Jul 2007