US seeks to stem TB spread

Health officials in the United States started a nationwide search this week for scores of airline passengers who may have come into contact with a woman infected with a potentially fatal strain of tuberculosis, travelling from New Delhi to San Francisco.

Authorities said that the chances of the woman having infected anyone else were minimal. She arrived in San Francisco on December 13th, following a stopover in Chicago.

The woman was subsequently treated at a hospital in the Bay Area and is currently in isolation, in a stable condition.

Officials from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention are now seeking out up to 44 people, from 17 different states, who sat within two rows of the woman, to urge them to be checked for the TB virus.

From Chicago, passengers who came into contact with the woman are thought to have travelled on to California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, New Jersey, Texas and Virginia, among other states.

Approximately one third of the world's total population is infected with the TB bacillus, which can remain deadly in the air for hours. In July, the World Health Organisation set new guidelines for keeping people with TB off planes.

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