BRUSSELS, May 31 (Reuters) - European Union countries are seeking to trace passengers who sat near a man infected with a dangerous strain of tuberculosis on two trans-Atlantic flights, the European Commission said on Thursday. The EU executive said in a statement the search was on for passengers who had sat in the same row as the man or in the two rows in front of or behind him as well as the cabin crews, on the advice of the European Centre for Disease control. "The ECDC's advice is that the risk for these persons is very limited, other passengers are not considered at risk," the Commission said. The decision follows Wednesday's announcement by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that the man -- now under isolation in a hospital near his home in Atlanta -- had fled across Europe to avoid detention by health officials. Despite knowing he had drug-resistant tuberculosis, or XDR-TB, he travelled with his wife on honeymoon to Italy earlier this month. Authorities told him he would be banned from flying. The man began his trip in Atlanta on May 12, flying to Paris, then Athens, Santorini in Greece, back to Athens, to Rome and finally Prague. He then flew to Montreal and drove from there over the border from Canada to New York. The Commission said it was trying to contact passengers on Air France flight 385, which departed Atlanta on May 12 and arrived in Paris on May 13, along with those people aboard Czech Air flight 410 from Prague to Montreal in Canada on May 24. Experts repeatedly point out that anyone could carry any virus around the world on a single flight, but the CDC's on both sides of the Atlantic said the patient is not likely to have been highly infectious.
