U.S. Barred 33 TB-Infected People From Flying Over Past Year

Thirty-three would-be air travelers with suspected or confirmed infectious tuberculosis were placed on the U.S. government's public health "Do Not Board" list in the first year of its existence, a federal report released Thursday showed.

Authorized under the Aviation and Transportation Security Act of 2001, the list was instituted on June 1, 2007 by the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Homeland Security, according to an article in the Sept. 19 issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report , a CDC publication.

"Before June 2007, we had a system to prevent travel which was mostly based on local action," explained Dr. Francisco Alvarado-Ramy, co-author of the report and a CDC quarantine public health officer based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. "We have moved from predominantly a decentralized system to a centralized one We're formally tapping all U.S. government resources which add ...