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Airlines Seek Passengers Who Flew With Meningitis Patient

By Dan Schlossberg
ConsumerAffairs.com

July 24, 2007

A teenage girl with bacterial meningitis flew from Orlando to Atlanta on July 21 and then caught a connecting flight to Wichita, Kansas.

AirTran has been trying to track down passengers who sat near her, according to spokesmen for the Atlanta-based airline.

The girl, who became sick and unresponsive on the plane, was taken off the flight by an ambulance summoned in advance by the AirTran crew. She lapsed into critical condition shortly after diagnosis at Wesley Medical Center in Wichita.

She had taken Flight 862 from Orlando to Atlanta and Flight 867 from Atlanta to Wichita.

Both planes have been thoroughly cleaned and returned to service since the weekend incident.

Bacterial meningitis is a highly-contagious disease often spread by discharges from the nose and throat of an infected person, though not from breathing the same air. Symptoms range from fever, headache, and stiff neck to nausea, drowsiness, confusion, and sensitivity to light.

Without prompt treatment with antibiotics, it can be fatal.

In May, tuberculosis patient Andrew Speaker, an attorney from Atlanta, flew from Atlanta to Paris for his honeymoon, returning 12 days later on a flight from Prague to Montreal. Shortly after driving to New York in a rented car, he was placed in an Atlanta hospital isolation ward and then transferred to Denver for treatment.

He had been told not to travel by health authorities in both the United States and Italy.

Air France notified passengers who shared Speaker’s flights about the possible health hazards.

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