By Associated Press
Birmingham, AL – Health departments across the state are working to contact 28 passengers from Alabama, including 15 from Birmingham, who were on the trans-Atlantic flight to Paris from Atlanta with Andrew Speaker, the 31-year-old Atlanta lawyer now known to have an extremely drug-resistant form of tuberculosis.
Health officials said some haven't been located and are presumably still on vacation. The health departments are following the Centers for Disease Control's protocol to bring all passengers in for testing, but officials said the situation is not cause for great alarm.
Speaker's TB isn't believed to be particularly contagious at this stage. Health officials said there were 15 people from Birmingham on the Atlanta-to-Paris flight, four from Graham in Randolph County and one each from Montgomery, Prattville, Helena, Vestavia Hills, Northport, Guntersville, Huntsville and Tuscaloosa. One other passenger had an Army Post Office address and the city wasn't available.
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)