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More on that idiot with highly drug resistant TB
A tuberculosis patient under the first federal quarantine since 1963 was taken Thursday to National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver, which specializes in respiratory disorders, officials said. He walked in under his own power after flying from Atlanta with his wife and federal marshals, hospital spokesman William Allstetter said.CBS News has learned the man with the extreme form of tuberculosis is Andrew Harley Speaker, a 31-year-old lawyer from Atlanta. A medical official in Atlanta also confirmed the name on condition of anonymity. The man has a rare and dangerous form of tuberculosis that has proved resistant to drugs. He looked healthy and tan, and "he said he still felt fine," Allstetter said. Doctors plan to begin treating the man immediately with two antibiotics, one oral and one intravenous. He also will undergo a basic physical exam, a test to evaluate how infectious he is and a CT scan and lung X-ray, Allstetter said. Doctors hope to also determine where he contracted the disease. He will be kept in a special unit with two rooms and a ventilation system, Allstetter said. "He may not leave that room much for several weeks," Allstetter said. According to a biography posted on a Web site connected with Speaker's law firm, he attended the U.S. Naval Academy, graduated from the University of Georgia with a degree in finance, and then attended University of Georgia's law school. In a phone interview with the Atlanta Constitution-Journal from an Atlanta hospital earlier this week, he explained that he knew he had TB when he flew from Atlanta to Europe in mid-May for his wedding and honeymoon, but that he didn't find out until he was already there that it was an extensively drug-resistant strain considered especially dangerous. Despite warnings from federal health officials not to board another long flight, he flew home for treatment fearing he wouldn't survive if he didn't reach the U.S. Health officials in North America and Europe are trying to track down about 80 passengers who sat near him on the two trans-Atlantic flights, and they want passenger lists from four shorter flights he took while in Europe. Patients on the shorter flights are not expected to be as much at risk, health officials said. Speaker had flown to Paris on May 12 aboard Air France Flight 385, also listed as Delta Air Lines codeshare Flight 8517, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Speaker and his bride also took four shorter flights while in Europe Paris to Athens on May 14; Athens to Thira Island May 16; Mykonos Island to Athens May 21; and Athens to Rome May 21 but CDC officials said there was less risk of infection during the shorter hops compared to the trans-Atlantic flights, which each lasted eight hours or more. It was while they were in Rome that he learned further U.S. tests had determined his TB was the rare, extensively drug-resistant form, far more dangerous than he knew. Officials told Speaker to turn himself over to Italian health officials and not to fly on any commercial airlines. Instead, on May 24, he flew from Rome to Prague on Czech Air Flight 0727, then flew to Montreal aboard Czech Air Flight 0104 and drove into the U.S., according to CDC officials. Speaker told the Journal-Constitution that he wasn't coughing and that doctors initially did not order him not to fly and only suggested he put off his long-planned wedding. "We headed off to Greece thinking everything's fine," he told the newspaper. Alison Young, the Journal-Constitution reporter who interviewed Speaker by telephone, told CBS News correspondent Kelly Cobiella the man said health officials never required him to wear masks or isolate himself. Dr. Charles Daley, head of the infectious disease division at National Jewish Hospital, said the hospital has treated two other patients with what appears to be the same strain of tuberculosis since 2000, although that strain had not been identified and named at the time. He said the patients had improved enough to be released. "With drug-resistant tuberculosis, it's quite a challenge to treat this," Daley told CNN on Thursday. "The cure rate that's been reported in other places is very low. It's about 30 percent for XDR-TB." "This is a different patient, though. We're told that this is very early in the course, and most of the time when we get patients that it's very extensive and very far advanced. So I think we're more optimistic," he said. "We're aiming for cure. We know it's an uphill battle, but we hope to get there." Posted by: trailing wife 2007-05-31 |
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