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Case prompts question: TB a concern in Loudoun?
On May 25, Andrew Speaker, a 31-year-old Georgia resident, was quarantined because he carried tuberculosis. He had been diagnosed with a drug-resistant strain of the disease, which can be transmitted through sneezing or coughing.
Speaker, who boarded an Air France flight from Atlanta to Paris May 12, knew he was infected and had been urged by doctors not to travel. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracked him down and brought him back to the States, where he's since been quarantined.
The incident plus a call from a reader expressing concern about the spread of infectious diseases prompted the Times-Mirror to ask if Loudouners are at risk.
According to Dr. David Goodfriend, director of the Loudoun County Health Department, tuberculosis is very common in Africa, Asia, and Central and South America.
"There is a screening process [for those coming into the country], but it's not perfect," he said, adding that it's just as likely for a U.S. citizen to travel abroad and bring tuberculosis home as it is for a foreigner to bring the disease into the country.
"There have been eight active cases of TB in Loudoun since January," Goodfriend said. "The most recent was May 30."
The number of tuberculosis incidents in Loudoun has increased 100 percent over the last 10 years, from about 10 cases a year to about 20, said Goodfriend.
"It's not an epidemic because people here aren't contracting tuberculosis," Goodfriend said. Once a person is diagnosed with the disease, an average of about 30 to 50 people he or she knows are rounded up and brought in for testing to make sure they are not carrying the illness. He said TB is transmitted predominantly through coughing and extreme exposure.
If someone had it on a flight from Atlanta to Richmond, you probably wouldn't catch it, he said. But if you were exposed on a flight from Atlanta to Paris, which was the case earlier this month, that would be a concern.
Goodfriend did say Loudoun County is an area were TB is on the rise: "And it's because our immigrant population is on the rise.
"As we become more diverse, we will see more cases," he said, but it's important to know that it's not spreading beyond these few people who test positive. He said tests for TB include a lung test and skin test, the skin test being the more common at checkpoints for entering the country.
"[Travelers] are detained if they have a positive skin test," he said.
Virginia reported 331 cases of tuberculosis in 2006, which was a 6.8-percent decrease in cases from the previous year, according to the CDC's Web site.
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