In the age of travel, tuberculosis knows no borders

The recent episode of an air passenger who travelled from India to the United States, while suffering from extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB*), has raised a public health scare. The passenger, after landing in Chicago, travelled by car to visit relatives in three states before seeking medical care and being diagnosed with XDR-TB. She has been isolated and is currently on treatment at the US National Institutes of Health. Public health officials are now working to locate everyone who has possibly been exposed to the infection, including fellow air passengers.