The infected man, who has been placed in quarantine by the U.S. government, 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 104 from Prague to Montreal.
Since the man was potentially infectious at the time of the flights, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials recommended medical exams for cabin crew members on those flights, as well as passengers sitting in the same rows or within two rows.
AP reports that the man is infected with "extensively drug-resistant" TB, also called XDR-TB, which resists many drugs used to treat the infection.
According to CDC, 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, when the officials urged people on the same flights to get checked for tuberculosis.
Upon conducting the tests on this man, it was found that the amount of TB bacteria in him was low, so passengers are not considered to be at high risk of infection.
After the advent of many new antibiotics and other measures, the TB rate in the United States has been falling for years. Last year, it hit an all-time low of 13,767 cases, or about 4.6 cases per 100,000 Americans. Also in 2006, there were two U.S. cases of this drug-resistant form of TB.
