Travellers exposed to deadly TB strain

Atlanta

US health authorities are holding an American man who flew overseas with a rare and exceptionally dangerous form of tuberculosis, the first time a quarantine order has been issued in the United States since 1963.

The CDC (Centers for Disease Control) headquarters say the man, from the US state of Georgia, may have exposed passengers and crew aboard two trans-Atlantic flights earlier this month.

He cooperated with authorities after learning he had an unusually dangerous form of TB. He voluntarily went to a hospital and is not facing prosecution, officials said.

CDC officials on Tuesday released information about the passenger, and called for people on the same flights to get checked for the infection. The infected patient traveled on two trans-Atlantic air flights and in doing so, may have exposed passengers and crew to the infection.

The patient flew from Atlanta to Paris on May 12, arriving on May 13, on Air France Flight 385. He returned to the United States on May 24, on Czech Air Flight 410, from Prague to Montreal.

The man then drove into the United States. He is hospitalised, in respiratory isolation, according to the World Health Organisation.

He was potentially infectious at the time of the flights, so CDC officials recommended medical exams for cabin crewmembers on those flights, as well as passengers sitting in the same rows or within two rows.

The man was infected with "extensively drug-resistant" TB, also called XDR-TB. It resists many drugs used to treat the infection. Last year, there were two U.S. cases of that strain.