State warns bus riders of possible TB risk
MONTPELIER -- Passengers on a bus from Boston to Montreal in early May might have been exposed to tuberculosis but it's unlikely they were infected, Massachusetts health officials said yesterday.
The passengers were being notified that another passenger on the bus had the disease.
Dr. Al DeMaria, director of communicable disease control for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, said these types of notifications of passengers happen "all the time."
"We almost never find anyone with infection as a result," he said. "There's nothing about this case that suggests he's highly infectious or has a rare kind of tuberculosis," he said of the passenger, who traveled round trip from May 5 to 8.
Chris Andreasson, general manager of Vermont Transit Co. Inc., said last week that the company's bus drivers had been tested and cleared of the disease.
The Boston Public Health Commission had a Boston passenger and bus driver tested for the disease, said spokeswoman Ann Scales. The test results were confidential, she said.
This spring Andrew Speaker, an Atlanta lawyer, caused an international health scare after he flew to Europe after he had been told he had a drug-resistant form of tuberculosis.
Andreasson said he was told the bus passenger's possible infection was not as serious as the Speaker case.
"The amount of time you may be exposed to someone may be a factor. Other factors play into the role of how infectious this person was," said Dr. Cort Lohff, Vermont's epidemiologist. 