ATLANTA – A man with a rare and exceptionally dangerous form of tuberculosis has been placed in quarantine by the U.S. government after possibly exposing passengers and crew on two trans-Atlantic flights this month, health officials said Tuesday.
It is the first time since 1963 that the government issued a quarantine order. The last such order was to quarantine a patient with smallpox, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC urged people on the same flights to get checked for tuberculosis.
The government issued the order after a CDC official reached the man by phone in Italy and told him not to take commercial flights, but he flew back to North America anyway, said Dr. Martin Cetron, director of the CDC’s division of global migration and quarantine.
“He was told in no uncertain terms not to take a flight back,” Cetron said.
The infected man flew from Atlanta to Paris on May 12 aboard Air France Flight 385. He returned to North America on May 24 aboard Czech Air Flight 0104 from Prague to Montreal. The man then drove into the United States.
Cetron reached the man once he was back in the United States. At that point, he voluntarily went to a New York hospital, then was flown by the CDC to an Atlanta-area hospital.
He is not facing prosecution, health officials said. The man is hospitalized in Atlanta in respiratory isolation, according to the World Health Organization.
Tests indicated the amount of TB bacteria in the man was low, so passengers are not considered to be at high risk of infection, Cetron said.
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