Federal Quarantine for TB Traveler

A man with a rare and exceptionally dangerous form of tuberculosis has been placed in quarantine by the U.S. government after possibly exposing passengers and crew on two trans-Atlantic flights earlier this month, health officials said Tuesday. (AP GRAPHIC) (AP)

"He was told in no uncertain terms not to take a flight back," Cetron said.

In an attempt to evade the no-fly list that the CDC had put him on, he and his wife flew into Canada and drove to the U.S., he told the newspaper.

"I'm a very well-educated, successful, intelligent person," he told the paper. "This is insane to me that I have an armed guard outside my door when I've cooperated with everything other than the whole solitary-confinement-in-Italy thing."

CDC officials told The Associated Press they could not immediately comment on the interview.

His wife tested negative for TB before the trip and is not considered a public health risk, health officials said. Health officials said they don't know how the Georgia man was infected.

CDC officials said they are concentrating on investigating the trans-Atlantic flights, when possibility of spread of the disease was greatest because he was in a confined space with other people for many hours.

The quarantine order was the first since 1963, when the government quarantined a patient with smallpox, according to the CDC.

Tuberculosis is a disease caused by germs that are spread from person to person through the air. It usually affects the lungs and can lead to symptoms such as chest pain and coughing up blood. It kills nearly 2 million people each year worldwide.

Because of 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.

Health officials worry about "multidrug-resistant" TB, which can withstand the mainline antibiotics isoniazid and rifampin. The man was infected with something even worse _ "extensively drug-resistant" TB, also called XDR-TB, which resists many drugs used to treat the infection.

There have been 17 U.S. XDR-TB cases since 2000, according to CDC statistics.

The CDC's statement that the patient is at the low end of communicability "provides some reassurance," said Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of the department of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University.

The highly dangerous form is "expanding around the world," particularly in South Africa, eastern Europe and the former states of the Soviet Union, he said.

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Associated Press writers Malcolm Ritter in New York and Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.