CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding said authorities in the United States and other countries were trying to notify passengers who traveled on Air France flight 385, arriving in Paris from Atlanta on May 13, and on Czech Air flight 0104, arriving in Montreal from Prague on May 24 that there was an exposure risk to a man with SUPER TB XDR TB or Super Tuberculosis.
The infected, but relatively asymptomatic man, is a U.S. citizen from Georgia who is suffering from extensive drug-resistant TB, known as XDR TB, which resists virtually all antibiotics, the CDC said. Tuberculosis is a bacterial infection that usually attacks the lungs. He was isolated in an isolation facility in New York and then transferred by CDC plane to a CDC facility in Atlanta, Georgia.
XDR TB requires 18 months to two years of treatment with a mixture of four to six drugs. The treatment can often require surgery, as well, and can cost $500,000 per patient.
XDR TB is resistant to first-line antibiotics, and to an entire class of antibiotics called fluoroquinolones, as well as to at least one of three injectable drugs.
UPDATE: Infected Man identified as Andrew Speaker who married daughter of a TB scientist. Speaker’s father-in-law, Bob Cooksey, is a CDC microbiologist specializing in the infectious process of TB and other bacteria.
Google cache of speakerlawfirm.com (no longer live website)
More info …
Centers for Disease Control | Extensively Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis (XDR TB)