CDC begins tracking down passengers near TB-infected woman

San Jose: When American Airlines Flight 293 took off from New Delhi for a 16-hour flight to Chicago early Dec. 13, there was no way for other passengers to know that the 30-year old Sunnyvale, Calif., woman coughing in their midst was a danger to those nearby.
There was no international law to prohibit the Nepal native from boarding a commercial flight, even though she had been diagnosed with a dangerous case of drug-resistant tuberculosis in India.
Even though World Health Organization guidelines say no one with an infectious case of multi-drug-resistant TB should ever board a commercial airliner because of the risk of infecting others, there is no system or international database to notify airlines beforehand, or public health authorities afterward, about the journey. Such a system would be extremely difficult to create, industry and health officials say.
Thursday _ two weeks after the woman boarded her plane _ the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notified public health authorities in 16 states, from California to Vermont, about the drug-resistant TB case on Flight 293, as they began tracking down 44 U.S. nationals and people traveling on non-U.S. passports who sat within two rows of the woman on the Boeing 777.
The woman is being treated in isolation at Stanford Hospital. "We don't know what her prognosis is," said Dr. Marty Fenstersheib, Santa Clara County's public health officer. "TB takes a good amount of time before you know whether they respond to their medication."
27/12/07 San Jose Mercury News - McClatchy-Tribune News Service via COMTEX/Trading Markets (press release), US

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Categories: Foreign Dec 2007