By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor WASHINGTON, May 30 (Reuters) - A tuberculosis patient held under the first U.S. isolation order in more than 40 years was on his honeymoon abroad and decided to "run" when he heard authorities wanted to lock him up and force treatment, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on Wednesday. "We're sitting in a hotel room in Italy and we're looking at each other and we're on our honeymoon and the authorities are coming in hours," the newspaper quoted the man as saying. So they fled. The man's decision to travel while ill prompted the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to do something it had not done for 44 years: They ordered the patient held in isolation because he was infected with a severe form of tuberculosis called extensive drug-resistant TB or XDR TB. This strain of the common bacterial infection resists virtually all antibiotics, and requires a long and expensive course of therapy to cure. The man told the newspaper he did not want to put anyone at risk but wanted to get home for treatment. The patient, a Georgia resident whose name was withheld by the newspaper, said he knew he had tuberculosis but not that it was the XDR type when he went abroad, heading first to Greece. He said he was receiving antibiotic treatment. "We headed off to Greece thinking everything's fine," the newspaper quoted him as saying. Tuberculosis is contagious and can infect people through airborne droplets or if they pick up the dried bacteria from a surface. TB kills about 1.6 million people a year, mostly in developing countries as it can be treated with antibiotics. Experts around the world are increasingly concerned about XDR TB, which requires 18 months to two years of treatment with a mixture of four to six drugs. The treatment can often require surgery as well as the newest drugs and can cost $500,000 per patient. MAN SAYS COOPERATING The patient who is now isolated in an Atlanta hospital said he would be getting the surgery at National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver and the long course of antibiotics. He said he was puzzled by the handling of his case. "This is insane to me that I have an armed guard outside my door when I've cooperated with everything other than the whole solitary confinement in Italy thing," the newspaper quoted him as saying. Tests on his wife and other close contacts showed none were infected. According to the newspaper, the man said, "The county health department knew I was going over to have a honeymoon." He said the health officials told him they "preferred" that he not travel but did not forbid him to do so. The newspaper quoted Dr. Steven Katkowsky, director of public health and wellness for Fulton County, Georgia, as saying the man was advised not to travel but attempts to hand-deliver a directive failed. The patient said a CDC official reached him in Rome and asked him to turn himself into Italian health authorities the next morning to go into indefinite isolation and treatment. "I thought to myself: 'You're nuts,'" the newspaper quoted him as saying. "I wasn't going to do that. They told me I had been put on the no-fly list and my passport was flagged." So he traveled to Prague, from where he flew to Canada and then drove across the U.S. border. According to the newspaper, he wanted to return to the United States because he feared Italian specialists did not have the expertise to treat him successfully. CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding said authorities in the United States and other countries were trying to notify passengers who traveled on Air France flight 385, arriving in Paris from Atlanta on May 13, and on Czech Air flight 0104, arriving in Montreal from Prague on May 24.
