After Woman Diagnosed With Rare Form Of TB, Health Officials Reach Out To Those Who Shared Flight To Chicago
(CBS) -- Health officials are tracking down people who had contact with a woman diagnosed at a suburban hospital with a rare and deadly form of tuberculosis, reports WBBM's Mike Krauser.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is not identifying the 25-year-old woman but says she flew from India to Chicago and stayed with relatives in McHenry before being hospitalized with a hard to treat form of tuberculosis.
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Aside from reaching out to family, health officials are reaching out to people on the same flight.
"When someone coughs that droplet can stay two to three hours in the air but it is not that high-risk and so tuberculosis really happens when people are in close quarters together, so that is why the people in her same row on a plane need to be identified and tested," said CBS News Medical Contributor Dr. David Agus.
The woman is now in isolation at the National Institutes of Health Clinic Center in Bethesda, Md.
