A Georgia man infected with a potentially deadly form of drug-resistant tuberculosis told a newspaper that health authorities in Atlanta never explicitly barred him from leaving on an overseas trip that may have exposed hundreds of people in the U.S., Europe and Canada.
The man, who spoke to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Tuesday, said health officials only said that they "preferred" he stay home in the Atlanta area. The man then reportedly left for Europe to get married.
On Wednesday, officials from the Fulton County Health and Wellness Department and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that they clearly and emphatically told him to stay put.
"He was told in no uncertain terms that he had a serious, contagious disease," said Dr. Steven Katkowsky, director of the Fulton County health department. "We told him not to travel."
The conflicting stories are the latest twist in the series of missteps and misunderstandings that have sparked an international effort to track down airline passengers, crew and others that may have had close contact with the infected man.
Dr. Martin Cetron, director of CDC's division of global migration and quarantine, acknowledged at a news conference Wednesday that the agency was making slow progress in reaching passengers and crew aboard the man's transatlantic flights.
The CDC released more detailed information about the man's itinerary to help people aboard those flights identify themselves.
CDC officials said they believed the man was sitting around row 51 on Air France Flight 385 from Atlanta to Paris and in seat 12C on Czech Air Flight 0104 from Prague to Montreal. They believe about 80 people on the two flights were sitting in the high-risk areas, which include the row the man was sitting in and two rows around him.
About 450 people were aboard the Paris-bound plane and about 200 were aboard the Montreal-bound plane.
Cetron emphasized that the chances that other people were infected were low. But because the man's disease, known as extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, or XDR TB, is so difficult to treat, the agency indicated it could take no chances.
The CDC is isolating the man under a federal public health order -- the first issued since the isolation of a smallpox patient in 1963.
Tuberculosis is an infection of the lungs characterized by fever, weight loss, night sweats and coughing up of blood. The disease is spread primarily through prolonged close contact, in microscopic droplets released when an infected person coughs, sneezes or speaks.
