Woman with TB in Washington who evaded treatment for a year is now cured

[thewayne]

Once she was arrested and health officials gained her trust, apparently she understood the risk she posed to the community and the infection posed to herself. She began treatment, her health improved, she regained weight, and is now cured and no longer a problem for the community.

While she was infected, amongst other things she had taken a public bus to a casino and had been in a traffic accident and later went to a hospital, complaining of chest pains. Her chest x-ray was so bad that the doctors thought she had lung cancer. It was actually showing that the TB had gotten much worse. Yet she continued to dodge health workers who wanted to get her into treatment.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/07/woman-who-went-on-the-lam-with-untreated-tb-is-now-cured/

Comments

[arlie]

I remember - from news stories at the time, so not necc. reliable memories now - a case in Canada, probably Quebec province, some time late in the last third of the twentieth century. A woman with TB was being refused treatment, not being covered by the relevant public health service, either because she was an immigrant to Canada, a foreign visitor, or perhaps merely a Canadian from outside Quebec who hadn't lived there long enough to establish coverage. So she was going to one clinic after another, by subway, looking for help.

[thewayne]

That's just nuts. Here we have a disease that's a major public health menace, it should be classed as 'Treat RIGHT NOW, regardless of insurance coverage! The State Will Pay!'