TB Andy Wasn't The Only One To Screw Up

Local health officials appear to have repeatedly violated Georgia health policies in their management of Andrew Speaker's tuberculosis case, failing to sequester him in home isolation nearly two weeks before he left the United States for Greece and allowing Speaker's fiancée to oversee his medication-taking before that.

While county, state and federal health officials have focused attention on Speaker's travels to and from Europe, a review of the state policy and interviews by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution indicate that health authorities — private and public — mismanaged his case from the start, setting the stage for what became an international health incident.

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Despite missteps in Speaker's case, Beverly DeVoe-Payton, the state's TB director, said she has "the fullest of confidence" in the Fulton County Department of Health and Wellness, the government agency with primary responsibility for protecting Atlantans from exposure to tuberculosis patients.

And the public, she said, has no reason to worry that a second multi-drug resistant TB patient recently diagnosed in Georgi a is being mismanaged. "I can assure you that case is under proper care," DeVoe-Payton said. State officials would not identify which county is managing the case.

Yeah, I feel secure… Probably because I don't live in Fulton County.