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Are you one of the 44 Possibly Infected with TB?

A women traveling this Holiday season from India to California with a stop in Chicago may have infected passengers on board an American Airline flight December 13 with a deadly strain of tuberculosis.
Forty-four passengers over a 17 state span were seated within two rows of the infected women and are currently being sought for testing. The unidentified woman is currently being treated in a California hospital.

Approximately one third of our world’s population is infected with tuberculosis and each year TB kills as many as two million people infected with the deadly virus. Right now there is no future diagnosis for the woman as Doctors say it is too early to determine.

Most people infected with TB can be cured. Treatment is a combination of various antibiotic drugs given to the patient over a span of six months and in some cases as long as 12 months. If patients develop MDR-TB, a strain of TB that is resistant to two or more drugs, they can expect treatment to last up to two years.

Patients with MDR-TB and in treatment may still not recover from the intense strain. Anywhere between four and six patients out of 10 will die with MDR-TB.

Source:

Woman Flies with Dangerous TB Strain, The Associated Press, Retrieved from Channel 7 News Albuquerque

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health