Hospital plans 'reclassification' of TB patient's disease

A hospital treating an Atlanta man with what federal officials had said was the most dangerous form of tuberculosis have scheduled a 3 p.m. news conference today to announce a "reclassification" of the man's disease and a change in his treatment plan.

The patient, Andrew Speaker, had previously been classified with the form of TB considered most difficult to treat — called extensively drug resistant or XDR TB — and had been scheduled to undergo lung surgery this month.

National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver gave no further details in its press release of what will be announced.

Speaker set off an international health scare last month after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention held a press conference to announce that they had issued a rare federal isolation order against Speaker specifically because he had XDR TB. Speaker had flown to Europe for his wedding and honeymoon and the CDC called for testing on passengers from several countries who were on the trans-Atlantic flights with Speaker.

While noting the risk of transmission was small because Speaker had no symptoms and was not coughing, CDC Director Julie Gerberding said the risk wasn't zero and said the extreme difficulty of finding antibiotics to effectively treat XDR TB made the international alerts and precautions necessary.

CDC spokesman Tom Skinner declined to comment until the afternoon press conference.

The case set off a furor in the United States, as well as in Italy, Greece and at the World Health Organization. Three congressional committees are investigating after serious questions were raised about how Fulton County and Georgia state health officials and the CDC handled the case both before he left the U.S. for his wedding abroad. They also are questioning how Speaker managed to get back into the country despite the flagging of his passport and addition of his name to a no-fly list.

Before leaving the United States, Speaker was diagnosed with a serious, but slightly less difficult to treat form of TB, called multi-drug resistant TB. Doctors at National Jewish Medical and Research Center, considered world experts in treating drug-resistant TB, had been planning to remove part of Speaker's TB-infected lung to reduce the area of infection that is being treated with antibiotics.

Speaker has never had any symptoms or cough. His TB was only identified by chance: Doctors in January saw a spot on his lung after he had an x-ray for an injury.

source;www.ajc.com