Tuberculosis

A Georgia man infected with a potentially deadly form of drug-resistant tuberculosis told a newspaper that health authorities here never explicitly barred him from leaving on an overseas trip that might 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. Yesterday, 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 Department of Health.

Dr. George Wills Comstock, an internationally known tuberculosis researcher and professor of epidemiology who established and headed the former Johns Hopkins Training Center for Public Health Research and Prevention in Hagerstown for 40 years, died Sunday of prostate cancer at his Smithsburg home. He was 92. Throughout his life, Dr. Comstock sought to inspire his students and colleagues with words that Horace Mann, educator and abolitionist, spoke in his 1859 commencement address at Antioch College: "I beseech you to treasure up in your hearts these my parting words: Be ashamed to die before you have won some victory for humanity."

WASHINGTON -- On an eight-hour plane ride from Paris to New York last fall, a Ukrainian emigre repeatedly coughed. Unbeknown to fellow passengers, the man was sick with infectious tuberculosis.And it wasn't just any tuberculosis. His was a strain of TB that had mutated into an organism able to fight off six common anti-tuberculosis drugs.Two days after the flight, the man walked into a western Pennsylvania health clinic. Doctors diagnosed the illness. Health investigators called the airline and quickly tracked down 40 passengers who had sat near the man.They were glad they did: 13 passengers were found infected with the bacteria.

The seclusion, scenery and architecture at Henryton Center in Marriottsville might attract buyers, but a look inside the 18 decaying buildings would send them running.Quips about the state of buildings came fast and easily as county officials and department heads toured Henryton yesterday with a state planner, but no one thought of a use for the abandoned state property that has been on the market for seven years.Everyone agreed that the 50-acre site that overlooks the Patapsco River is inviting and beautiful.

MUYNAK, Uzbekistan -- A trim work boat festooned with cheerful bunting stands next to the town hall, and a brightly painted mural depicts a thriving seaport, with strapping fishermen, a busy cannery and bright, blue water.It's a ghostly sight. There's no water here. One of the world's great environmental catastrophes descended on Muynak 30 years ago, when the Aral Sea began drying up. Today, Muynak is a dusty wasteland. The sea is about 70 miles away from its original shoreline.The fresh air that once brought tourists flocking to the beaches and sanitariums is now laden with germs.

Though it will come as small comfort to anyone who is coughing, wheezing and sweating out a fever, health officials say the flu season of 1997-1998 is not shaping up to be a severe one.For those with ailing children parked in front of television sets, this winter may seem one of the worst in memory. But doctors and epidemiologists who track disease trends say the flu season has been about average and far less severe than last year's."It hasn't been terrible, not anything like last year, which hit early, hit real hard and then was gone," said Dale Rohn, chief of communicable disease surveillance for the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

TIME IS running out for plans to create a humanitarian services complex called the City of Hope on the vacant grounds of Henryton Center, a former state tuberculosis hospital near Marriottsville.There is always hope, but that is waning. The state has just agreed to the third delay in turning over the 50-acre property to Harvest International Inc., of Owings Mills, which pledges to spend $5 million to renovate and rebuild the complex of abandoned buildings as a social services center.Come July 1, however, the state plans to withdraw its security protection of the wooded site along the Carroll-Howard county border, leaving it up to the charity to maintain the property.

MOSCOW -- Strains of tuberculosis that resist ordinary treatment, nurtured in Russia's crowded prison system, are reaching epidemic proportions, and Russian and Western efforts combat the disease here are making the problem worse, a panel of doctors said last week.Millions of people are at risk, and the disease won't stop at Russia's borders. It is already spreading quickly into the general population as infected prisoners are released."And those people get on planes, they go to Moscow, they go to Baltimore, and it spreads even farther," said Dr. Lee B. Reichman, director of the U.S. National Tuberculosis Center.

Baltimore County health department officials will administer tuberculosis tests today to some first-graders at Seven Oaks Elementary School in Perry Hall in the wake of a classmate's recent positive reaction to a tuberculin test, a spokesman for the schools said.The department determined there was minimal risk but offered the tests as a safety measure.Pub Date: 2/12/97

Maryland's tuberculosis rate dipped last year to its lowest point since the early part of the 20th century, continuing a decline that began two decades ago when Baltimore started dispatching public health nurses to watch patients take their medicine.Last year, 6.3 people had active TB for every 100,000 people in the population -- down from 7.3 per 100,000 in 1995.Maryland Health Secretary Dr. Martin P. Wasserman, making the announcement yesterday on World Tuberculosis Day, said the progress was due to the statewide implementation of "directly observed therapy" and the use of four-drug combinations.

The Howard County Health Department, in conjunction with the school system, sent letters to parents at Oakland Mills High School on Tuesday informing them that a 14-year-old male student at the school is being treated for nonairborne tuberculosis. Health officials say the student was diagnosed with the form of nonpulmonary tuberculosis in February and was removed from the school while he received initial treatment. The student, who is noncommunicable, has since returned to school. It is unknown how the student contracted the disease, but health officials said Thursday that the student did not contract the disease at school.

China has called an urgent meeting that could affect your life, and it's not about the global economic crisis - or global warming. Instead, it's about a quiet global health threat that is more disturbing than you probably assume: the silent spread of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) around the world. Many global health leaders are in Beijing this week trying to draw attention to the danger, including Bill Gates, whose foundation has given billions of dollars to fight diseases; Margaret Chan, the director-general of the World Health Organization; and senior representatives from more than two dozen nations, including the United States.

Baltimore has recorded the lowest rate of tuberculosis since it began keeping track of infection rates nearly two centuries ago, city officials said Tuesday. Last year, the city Health Department reported 32 cases of the disease, for a rate of 5 per 100,000 people. That's down from 47 cases in 2007, a rate of 7.4 per 100,000 people. "Thanks to an aggressive tuberculosis control program and effective engagement of community health care workers, the TB rates have steadily declined," Mayor Sheila Dixon said at a news conference at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, the site of a tuberculosis hospital in the late 1800s, when "consumption" was a top killer.

Mimi suffers from tuberculosis in the opera La Boheme, but in reality, there is little that's romantic about the disease. It is the second-leading cause of death from infection in the world (though not in the United States), says Dr. Richard E. Chaisson, professor of medicine, epidemiology and international health at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and founding director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Tuberculosis Research. Worldwide, the highest number of TB cases and deaths in recorded history will occur this year, according to Hopkins' Department of Medicine Web site.

Howard County health officials are investigating whether the county's first tuberculosis case this year, diagnosed in a student, spread the bacterial illness to staff members or other students at Hammond High School. The students and staff members at the Columbia school were told of the diagnosis yesterday. The county Health Department sent letters Saturday to 50 students who ride the bus with the student, warning them that they might have been exposed and encouraging them to get tested.

The abandoned Henryton Hospital opened in 1923 to treat African-American suffering from tuberculosis. In 1962, it became a facility for the developmentally disabled, and it closed in 1985. After that point, neglect began to claim the facility. A Dec. 19 fire at the Carroll County site has been determined to be arson, officials said. Fires and other acts of vandalism have taken a toll on Henryton for years. The state has put the facility on the market several times but has not found a buyer.

A Towson University student is being evaluated for a possible case of tuberculosis, Baltimore County health officials said yesterday. The 19-year-old man is no longer on campus and will not return until the completion of testing and any treatment, officials said. University and county health officials said they have no reason to believe that anyone else was exposed to the disease. University officials alerted students, faculty and staff to the possible case through a mass e-mail yesterday, said Carol Dunsworth, Towson's director of university relations.

Patient was likely source of TB, Hopkins says A Johns Hopkins Hospital employee who tested positive for tuberculosis in March probably contracted the infection from a patient, hospital officials said yesterday. The employee, who works in a nonmedical position, is undergoing treatment for the infection, which is "very treatable," said hospital spokesman David March. The employee tested positive for the bacterium during a routine annual skin test. "The employee is expected to make a full recovery and is not now and was never considered highly contagious or a threat to the health of co-workers or other staff and patients at Johns Hopkins," March said in a prepared statement.

Dr. George Wills Comstock, an internationally known tuberculosis researcher and professor of epidemiology who established and headed the former Johns Hopkins Training Center for Public Health Research and Prevention in Hagerstown for 40 years, died Sunday of prostate cancer at his Smithsburg home. He was 92. Throughout his life, Dr. Comstock sought to inspire his students and colleagues with words that Horace Mann, educator and abolitionist, spoke in his 1859 commencement address at Antioch College: "I beseech you to treasure up in your hearts these my parting words: Be ashamed to die before you have won some victory for humanity."

DENVER -- A man infected with an extremely dangerous strain of tuberculosis was allowed into the United States at a border crossing even after a routine check of his passport set off a computerized alert, authorities said yesterday. Andrew Speaker, 31, a personal-injury lawyer from Atlanta, arrived at the border at Champlain, N.Y., from Canada on May 24 after disregarding explicit instructions from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to remain in Italy - where he was on his honeymoon - for fear that he might spread the potentially lethal strain of TB. Speaker's father-in-law, Robert Cooksey, is a microbiologist at the CDC in the Division of Tuberculosis Elimination.