U.S. handling of TB case inept, WHO officials say

Top officials of the World Health Organization on Tuesday criticized American health authorities' handling of the case of a 31-year-old Atlanta lawyer with a dangerous strain of tuberculosis who defied official requests that he not take a long airplane flight.

At the least, local health officials should have told airlines to keep Andrew Speaker from boarding a plane once they concluded he was likely to defy advice and go ahead with plans to fly to Europe to be married.

"If his physician was aware that Mr. Speaker was going to travel, then he or she should have informed the public health authorities, and the public health authorities should have informed the airline ... or put them [Speaker and his fiance] on a watch list," said Paul Nunn, the head of WHO's office on drug-resistant tuberculosis.

Much remains unclear about which agencies knew of Speaker's intent to defy recommendations that he not travel and what they did about it. Details may emerge Wednesday at congressional hearings in which officials of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will testify. Speaker is scheduled to testify via a video link from Denver, where he is hospitalized.

A doctor said Tuesday that a third test of Speaker's sputum -- a mixture of saliva and phlegm -- turned up negative for the presence of TB bacteria, confirming results of earlier tests at National Jewish Medical and Research Center.

Normally, TB patients with three negative tests are allowed to leave their isolation rooms briefly. Additional precautions are advised for patients with drug-resistant strains.

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