Transient With Contagious TB Shows Up at Hospital

A 34-year-old tuberculosis patient, who was sought by authorities for ignoring a quarantine order, turned himself in to the Ventura County Medical Center Tuesday night.

Ronald Collins, a transient from Los Angeles County, was placed in a private room at the hospital and described to be in fair condition, a nursing supervisor said.

Collins, who ignored a quarantine order issued to prevent others from contracting the highly infectious disease, is the first person to face charges in Ventura County under a little-used state health and safety law, authorities said Tuesday.

“This is a very unusual case for us, one of the first of its kind that we’ve seen locally,” Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury said.

Collins had been named in an arrest warrant for violating an order of isolation and quarantine issued by the Ventura County Health Department, Bradbury said.

Authorities said that, after a two-year decrease, tuberculosis cases in the county are on a rise, mimicking a national trend. The county has recorded 33 new tuberculosis cases through June this year, officials said, compared to 50 cases for all of 1992.

Collins was diagnosed with tuberculosis--an infectious lung disease--in 1991 in Los Angeles County, said Lawrence Dodds, Ventura County’s former public health director.

But Collins twice left treatment and had not been seen by medical officials until June. Several weeks later Collins was released from detention but required to appear for treatment twice a week. He was missing for about two months before he showed up at the hospital 8 p.m. Tuesday, said Sgt. Jackie Rosin of the Ventura Police Department.