Posted: 5/29/2007 10:53:27 AM EDT
| MY wife has family in Cali.Husband and wife (both school teachers)in Sacramanto.And the have a 2yr. old girl.The husband and baby have tested pos. for TB!What do you guys know about it?They come out this way a few times a year,now i'm nervous to be around them!I also have a 4mo. old baby girl. |
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Did they used to live in Europe, or another part of the world, when they were children? Some childhood vaccinations used in Europe use a live virus vaccine, IIRC, as opposed to the dead virus vaccine used in the U.S - which can cause a "positive" in some TB tests. When I moved to the U.S. in the 1990s, I tested positive for TB, even though I obviously do not have it - I imagine every kid in Denmark would have tested positive for TB using those tests. |
What he said. TB is treatable. Preferable to not get exposed to it, but it isn't incurable like way back when. |
Depends on if they have an active infection or not. You can test "positive" for TB but not be infectious to others. If they have an active infection, I'd keep away from them. Of course, if they have an active infection, it's unlikely the public health authorities would allow them to travel on an airplane in the first place. TB comes from a bacteria that is fairly tough but doesn't grow very quickly. It's transmitted by breathing in the bacteria, usually when you're in close proximity to someone who has an active infection. When people are exposed, the body is usually able to fight off the infection, or isolate it in the lungs. However, if you're young, old, or already weakened by other infections (such as AIDS) the bacteria can overcome the body's immune system and start growing again. In the old days they called it "consumption" and it would take several years to kill you, while making you progressively weaker. Not unlike AIDS. The problem with TB today is that the US is awash in people from countries where TB is common, and there's a relatively large population of susceptible individuals. Add to that the fact that many antibiotics are no longer effective and you have the potential for a big epidemic. Thankfully, TB is not that easily transmitted. Go here for more information. |
"Vegans" are not actually that healthy. They have problems getting enough calcium, vitamin B-12 and complete protein in their diet. It's not that surprising they have TB, given they are probably experiencing borderline malnutrition. Nutritionally-speaking, they're more like refugees from post-war Europe than well-fed Americans. But they do have clean arteries. 
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I was getting all my shots before starting college, and my TB test came back positive for exposure. They needed to do a chest x-ray to see if I actually had it. So a couple of weeks later, I got to sit around in a room full of coughing people waiting to get x-rayed. Their idea of "make sure he actually has it" is not what I had in mind. 
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A guy I used to work with had an exposure (Medical field) and needed treatment. None of us tested positive after working with him with adjoining desks. After exposure, a skin test alone will not clear you to work in some fields, you will need to have annual chest X-rays. Something is currently in headline news about a TB exposure on an airplane. Google it up! |
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You generally get TB by being around people with active TB when they are coughing. There are 3 major strains, A and B are curable, C is not. Thing is, say you get A, they tell you to take some meds, after the first couple of pills, 99.9 percent of the TB in your system is dead. You got to take the rest to get rid of that last little bit. Thing is, bums, hookers, illegals, etc, get the meds for free from the Health Dept, take the first few doses, feel better, and stop. Then whats left in them is drug resistant, and sometimes becomes type C. If they are not active you are fine, and even if they are, you have a low chance of getting it. I would recommend getting checked anyways, and keep your kid away from them. |
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CNN.com U.S. seeks fliers possibly exposed to rare TB Story Highlights • CDC: Airline passengers may have been exposed to drug-resistant TB • Two flights involved: Air France 385 on May 12; Czech Air 0104 on May 24 • Exams urged for passengers in same row, two rows ahead or behind ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Federal health authorities said Tuesday that they are looking for people who may have been exposed to a rare and potentially fatal form of tuberculosis from an infected passenger during two trans-Atlantic flights this month. The man, infected with the extensively drug-resistant form of TB known as XDR TB, departed Atlanta, Georgia, on May 12 aboard Air France Flight 385 and arrived in Paris, France, the next day, said Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The man, who has not been identified publicly, returned last Thursday to North America aboard Czech Air Flight 0104 from Prague, Czech Republic, to Montreal, Canada, then drove into the United States. "During these two long flights, the patient may have been a source of infection to the passengers," Gerberding told reporters. Those most at risk would have been seated within two rows of the man, she said, adding that she was not sure what seats he occupied. Still, she said, CDC is recommending that all passengers be notified. "I don't think we would compel people to be tested, but we would strongly recommend" that anyone seated near the man undergo a baseline test now and a follow-up test several weeks from now, she said. Final diagnosis for XDR TB can take six to 16 weeks. XDR TB was recently defined as a subtype of multiple-drug resistant tuberculosis. It often proves fatal. The man's tuberculosis had been diagnosed before his departure, but he disregarded his doctors' recommendation that he not travel, she said. "The patient had compelling reasons for traveling and made the decision to go ahead and meet those personal responsibilities," she said, adding that federal authorities did not know until he had left the country that he had the rare form of the disease. The man himself may not have known either, she said. About his reasons for traveling, she said, "They were compelling, from his perspective, and we understand and certainly respect that." Once he returned, the man was ordered into isolation, "and is required to stay in isolation until the responsible public health officials deem that he is no longer infectious to others," she said. Treated in Atlanta He is being treated at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, a spokeswoman for the hospital said. He is a resident of Fulton County, Georgia, Gerberding said. Because the man's sputum does not test positive under the microscope for the bacillus, the chance that he would infect others is considered low, Gerberding said. "But we know it isn't zero," she said, adding that 17 percent of TB cases are transmitted by such carriers. A spokesman for the Public Health Agency of Canada said the CDC contacted the man while he was on vacation with his family in Europe and told him not to return on a commercial flight. Though the man ignored that caution, spokesman Dr. Howard Njoo noted that planes are equipped with air filters that are designed to trap the long, rod-shaped tuberculosis bacilli. The man returned via Canada and entered the United States by driving through the border crossing at Champlain, New York, Njoo said. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Kevin Corsaro said the man did not appear sick to border agents. CBP said it has not changed its screening or security precautions as a result of the case. Once he returned to the United States, the man was contacted by health officials, who required that he go to an isolation hospital in New York City for evaluation, said Dr. Martin Cetron, the CDC's chief of quarantine. "He drove himself there, voluntarily." The man was admitted and served a provisional quarantine order that lasted 72 hours while he was being assessed, Cetron said. Asked whether he preferred to stay in New York or return to his family in Atlanta for treatment, the man chose the latter option, said Cetron. CDC officials then arranged for the patient to be flown Monday aboard a CDC plane, an unusual use of agency resources, Gerberding acknowledged. She said the move was "one that we felt was fair and appropriate, given that he is a citizen of Georgia, his family members are here and his disease does require prolonged treatment." Upon his arrival in Atlanta, he was issued a federal isolation order to cover the time while the case was handed over to the jurisdiction of state and local officials in Fulton County, Cetron said. "That process of the handoff is ongoing right now." XDR TB rare in the U.S. The patient, who has few symptoms, has X-ray evidence of pulmonary TB and tests positive for XDR TB, the agency said. Between 1993 and 2006, XDR TB was diagnosed in 49 people in the United States, said Dr. Ken Castro, director of the division of TB Elimination at CDC. But the disease is more common elsewhere, he said. "When they looked, they found it in every single continent of the world," he said. One in three people in the world is infected with dormant TB bacteria, according to the World Health Organization. Age, immune suppression and other medical conditions can activate the bacteria, which can usually be treated with a course of four standard, or first-line, anti-TB drugs. WHO estimates that there were almost half a million cases of multiple-drug-resistant tuberculosis worldwide in 2004. People with TB of the lungs, the site most commonly affected, can spread the disease by coughing, sneezing or even talking. "A person needs only to breathe in a small number of these germs to become infected (although only a small proportion of people will become infected with TB disease)," the WHO said on its Web site. "The risk of becoming infected increases the longer the time that a previously uninfected person spends in the same room as the infectious case," it added. People with XDR TB are resistant to first- and second-line drugs; their treatment options are limited. Crowded, poorly ventilated, closed environments are most conducive to the spread of infection, it said. Cure is possible for up to 30 percent of cases, it added. People with HIV infection and other diseases that suppress the immune system are most at risk of catching TB and becoming sick. No one at the disease agency recalls the agency issuing a quarantine order since 1963, when a possible case of exposure to smallpox emerged, she said. "From our perspective, no laws were broken here," Gerberding said. "Our system works very well." Find this article at: http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/conditions/05/29/tb.flight/index.html © 2007 Cable News Network. |
+1 And while antibiotics may treat the infection, the bacteria can often be 'walled off' in the lungs by the immune system where antibiotics cannot reach the infected tissue. Later on in life, if you become immuno-compromised, the infection can resurface. Now with the advent of multi-drug resistant TB from illegal immigrants, it's very common for people to never get rid of the bacteria entirely. This is where one of the nicknames for TB came from: Consumption. It will literally consume you with infection. ETA from Uptodate:
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Yeah, I work at the native hospital, and the epidemiologists did a presentation on the return of TB in Alaska. Something like 30+ infections so far this year, up from almost nothing 2-3 years ago. |
and from eastern europe When I was a corrections officer one of the institutions here was contracted by INS to house people until deportation TB infection rate was 85% at that place glad I did not work at that one
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