This one is not me!
It’s in Ottawa, male, and infectious.
The guy will likely be held in jail for 8 or 9 months or until he is fully willing to comply with taking the drugs and quarantine until he is not infectious. It will probably be like here: the health officials come to your door every day for a month, then twice weekly with the pills to ensure you take them, to reduce the risk of developing resistant strains of TB.
Note: I submitted a letter from the head of TB here to the educational programme my daughter attends, to officially confirm that my case is not
contagious. I consider myself extremely fortunate!
Thanks to Hart Haidn for these items (the last one is about a new test that is under development, it takes 3 minutes for positive/negative test as opposed to the current 2 days.)
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Court orders TB patient jailed
Last Updated Wed, 22 Jun 2005 CBC News
A court in Ottawa has ordered a man with a highly infectious form of tuberculosis to be held in custody while doctors treat him.
Abdullahi Fourreh, who is from Ethiopia, has consistently resisted treatment, claiming the drugs used to treat the disease are killing him.
But public health officials say he’s already infected one person and they intend to cure him whether he likes it or not.
Doctors tried three different drug therapies on Fourreh in an attempt to reduce the side-effects. Each time Fourreh quit, finally deciding that his doctors were “assassins” and “men without souls.”
He also convinced himself that his tuberculosis wasn’t that much of a threat, says his lawyer Kevin Murphy.
“TB, as he put it, grows like weeds in Eastern Africa, and I think he was suggesting there was some innate alternative way of fighting off the disease, like overcoming a case of the flu,” said Murphy.
Public health officials didn’t see it that way. Pulmonary tuberculosis, which can be spread by coughing, is the most contagious strain of the disease. Ottawa assistant medical officer of health David Salisbury won the court order detaining Fourreh in Toronto.
“We will need to know that he is no longer infectious and is compliant with a treatment regimen that ensures that eventually he will be cured of this disease,” said Salisbury.
Murphy says his client now has few options but to take the drugs his doctors prescribe him, or sit in jail indefinitely.
Headlines: Canada
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BOSTON Almost 600 additional Boston Medical Center patients need tuberculosis tests than previously thought.
Officials say 4,300 patients and workers could have been exposed to tuberculosis by a surgical intern. Doctors diagnosed the intern with an infectious form of the lung disease last week.
The intern worked at B-M-C. She also rotated through the V-A Boston Health Care System hospital in West Roxbury, Brockton Hospital and Cape Cod Hospital.
B-M-C officials identified the 593 additional patients when they were reviewing records of those who could have been exposed. B-M-C spokeswoman Ellen Berlin says she doesn’t expect the hospital to find more exposures. One-hundred forty-four B-M-C patients and 517 workers had received T-B tests as of noon today.
Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed
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Tuberculosis Outbreak June 22, 2005
Second tuberculosis outbreak hits Allen County Health officials say cases of tuberculosis are on the rise in the Fort Wayne area.
The Allen County health department has confirmed ten new cases of TB and one death so far this year. Seven other possible cases are being investigated.
Health Commission Deb McMahan says a second strain of the disease which can be spread through the air was discovered in late spring. She says she thinks the outbreak has ended for the year.
Tuberculosis can be treated by a combination of antibiotics over six months but can cause severe illness and death if untreated.
The county is working with health care providers and free clinics to promote awareness of the disease’s symptoms.
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Proteome Systems doubles on TB fast track Jun 21 13:05 AAP
Shares in Proteome Systems surged as much as 106 per cent on Tuesday after the biotechnology company said it would fast-track the development of a portable diagnostic test for tuberculosis. Proteome shares climbed by as much as 17¢ to 33¢ after the company said it had won the backing of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Health Organisation to fast-track the test.
Proteome has developed the basis for a portable test that can determine if a person is suffering from tuberculosis in just three minutes, compared with conventional tests that take 24 hours to process.
“Bringing the diagnosis back from hours to minutes is significant,” ABN Amro Morgan’s biotech analyst Scott Power said.
Proteome chief executive Stephen Porges said the partnership would provide the critical support to speed the development of the test in addition to clinical material, assistance with trials and fast-tracking of registration, in return for exclusive royalty-free rights to distribute the product in the public health sector in developing countries.
Proteome announced the news at the BIO 2005 biotechnology convention in Philadelphia in the United States.
Proteome shares were 14¢, or 88 per cent, higher at 30¢ at 1254 AEST. (2012: the last share price is in 2011 and in the 14¢ range.)