MISSOULA (AP)
A University of Montana student on a jet that carried a man infected with a dangerous strain of tuberculosis says the alarm that surfaced with the news of possible exposure has subsided. "When I first heard about it he was listed in row 51 and I was in 50 and that was rather unnerving," Mike Dunlevy, 22, told KPAX-TV. "They also said anyone seated within a couple rows had ... risk of contamination. However, later on they reported he was in row 30, so I was able to sleep a lot better knowing that." Dunlevy was tested at the Missoula City-County Health Department on Monday after being identified as a person who may have had contact with the infected man, Andrew Speaker of Atlanta, during a trans-Atlantic flight this spring. Dunlevy said more testing is possible during the next few months. Of Speaker he said, "He made a mistake and I feel he's probably learned his lesson and it's something that's going to bug him for the rest of his life, whereas it's something that I'm slightly inconvenienced (by)." Speaker, now in quarantine, told Congress on Wednesday that doctors had informed him he was not contagious and they did not order him to stay in the United States for treatment. Speaker spoke by telephone from the Denver hospital room where he was in government-imposed isolation. In testimony to a Senate subcommittee, health officials said Speaker took an international flight two days earlier than planned, after being told he had a drug-resistant form of TB and should not travel. Dr. Steven R. Katkowsky, director of the health department for Georgia's Fulton County, said that "the local health department does not have the authority to prohibit or order somebody not to travel."
