U.S. quarantines traveler with TB

Health authorities have begun notifying hundreds of people who may have been exposed to a Georgia man infected with a form of tuberculosis resistant to almost all drugs, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday.

The man traveled on two transatlantic flights in May and health officials are most worried about the airline crews and the passengers sitting around him, said CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding.

“We have no suspicion that this patient was highly infectious,” she said. “In fact, the medical evidence would suggest his potential for transmission is on the low side, but we know it isn’t zero.”

As a precaution, authorities are contacting all the passengers on the planes. The CDC also issued an order to place the man in quarantine -- the first federal isolation order issued since 1963, when federal health authorities quarantined a smallpox patient.

“Because this organism is so potentially serious and could cause such serious harm to people, especially those that have other medical conditions that would reduce their immunity, we felt it was our responsibility to err on the side of abundant caution,” Gerberding said.

The Georgia man, identified only as a Fulton County resident, has a rare form of tuberculosis known as extensively drug resistant, or XDR, tuberculosis.

So far, the World Health Organization has recorded cases of XDR tuberculosis in 37 countries. In the U.S., 49 people were infected between 1993 and 2006, the CDC said.

The fatality rate for this form of the disease is six times higher than regular tuberculosis, according to the CDC.

Tuberculosis is an infection of the lungs characterized by fever, weight loss, night sweats and coughing up of blood.

The disease spreads in microscopic droplets released when an infected person coughs, sneezes or speaks. Infection occurs primarily through prolonged close contact.

The infection can be treated with antibiotics, but incomplete treatment can lead to drug resistance.

State and local officials have taken action before to quarantine XDR tuberculosis patients, but the isolation of the Georgia man was first undertaken by federal authorities.

They took action because the man traveled internationally and across states, said Dr. Marty Cetron, director of CDC’s division of global migration and quarantine.

Local authorities advised the Georgia man against traveling because he had tuberculosis, but the man left for personal reasons, Gerberding said.

On May 12, he left Atlanta on Air France Flight 385 for Paris. The CDC realized the extent of the man’s drug resistance only after he had departed, Gerberding said.

On May 24, he flew out of Prague on Czech Airlines Flight 0104, arrived in Montreal and drove into the U.S. He has been held in hospital isolation since May 25.

Health authorities are still trying to determine how the man contracted the disease.

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jia-rui.chong@latimes.com