5 from Tucson area tested for TB

Pima County health officials are testing five people from Tucson who were co-passengers with a man now quarantined and under treatment in Denver for a rare, dangerous strain of tuberculosis.

"We've been following them for roughly a week now," county Health Department spokeswoman Patti Woodcock said Friday. "Those that we have tested, none have been positive."

The five were among nearly 300 U.S. citizens who were aboard a May 12 flight with Atlanta lawyer Andrew Speaker, according to the Centers for Disease Control. According to Woodcock, County Health Director Dr. Michelle McDonald said a sixth person originally believed to be from Pima County was identified subsequently as living elsewhere in Arizona.

Speaker flew after having been diagnosed with a form of tuberculosis that was resistant to first-line drugs. His flight to Europe and return through Canada _ apparently after realizing that the type of TB he had was extremely dangerous _ have stirred nationwide controversy.

Second skin tests will be administered 12 weeks after the first to provide sufficient time for any exposure to produce a positive reaction.

Standard procedure in testing for tuberculosis involves skin tests 12 weeks apart, followed up with chest X-rays if indicated.

None of the five people being tested has been hospitalized, Woodcock added.

She said the Arizona Department of Health Services notified county health officials of the Arizona passengers after being contacted by the CDC and that local authorities are following CDC protocols.

McDonald said none of the Arizonans sat within a couple of rows of Speaker, considered the most critical zone on the plane. "I think the chance they were infected is quite low," she said.

"We needed to test a baseline, because if they test positive to tuberculosis, it wasn't from this exposure," Woodcock said. "It takes a long time for it to manifest itself."

According to Woodcock, McDonald said symptoms of the disease start with fatigue, followed by a cough that develops without apparent cause such as a cold; finally, someone who has contracted tuberculosis coughs up blood. "A lot of times, people carry it in their system, because you can get tuberculosis in your lymph nodes," Woodcock added.

In that case, it takes another medical crisis that compromises the immune system to trigger TB, she said. "So it can lay dormant for a long time."