DENVER -- The Atlanta tuberculosis patient whose trans-Atlantic voyage in May sparked an international public health incident has a less severe form of the disease than was initially diagnosed, health officials said yesterday.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in late May that Andrew Speaker had the most dangerous form of the illness, known as extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, and had left the U.S. against the advice of medical authorities.
The CDC asked the Department of Homeland Security to bar him from flying back into the U.S. and, for the first time in 44 years, used its quarantine power to order him into isolation should he return. Speaker flew to Canada and persuaded a border inspector to let him cross back into the U.S. despite being on a watch list. He surrendered to medical authorities in New York.
But the CDC and the hospital where Speaker is being treated here, National Jewish Medical and Research Center, announced yesterday that Speaker actually has multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis. Unlike the more severe type, this type of TB can be treated with some drugs, and its survival rate is twice as high as that of the extensively drug-resistant strain, though still far lower than normal TB.
Speaker's doctors have postponed lung surgery scheduled for this month. They said at an afternoon news conference that they were optimistic for both him and any people he might have exposed to the disease in his flights.
The CDC said it will not know until at least the end of the month whether anyone was infected by Speaker, and it defended its handling of the case. It said the public health protocols on handling extensively and multiple drug-resistant cases are identical.
"The patient has MDR, which is a significant public health concern," said Dr. Mitchell Cohen, director of the Coordinating Center for Infectious Diseases. "The public health actions CDC took in this case and is continuing to take are sound and appropriate."
In a statement, Speaker, a personal-injury attorney, chided the CDC for its initial misdiagnosis and the way it handled his case. "In the future, I hope they realize the terribly chilling effect they can have when they come after someone and their family on a personal level," Speaker said. "They can, in a few days, destroy an entire family's reputation, ability to make a living and good name."
Nicholas Riccardi writes for the Los Angeles Times.