AN extraordinary family coincidence in the case of Andrew Speaker, an American lawyer who travelled around Europe while infected with a virulent strain of tuberculosis, has baffled scientists and sparked a flurry of internet speculation.

It emerged yesterday that Speaker, who flew to Europe for his wedding and honeymoon despite warnings that he should not travel, was diagnosed with TB by a team of American government scientists who included his new father-in-law.

Speaker, 31, was found to be infected with a dangerous drug-resistant strain of TB known as XDR. His father-in-law is Dr Robert Cooksey, a tuberculosis specialist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.

The CDC’s director, Dr Julie Gerberding, has confirmed that Cooksey helped with the tests that produced Speaker’s XDR diagnosis. But both the agency and Cooksey have insisted that Speaker’s TB did not originate at the CDC laboratories and that the father-in-law could not somehow have infected his new son-in-law.

It is not yet clear whether Cooksey, who reportedly attended his daughter’s wedding on the Greek island of Santorini last month, knew that the sample he was testing came from his son-in-law. But the rarity of the disease and the long odds against an XDR-TB victim being related to a TB expert are increasing pressure on the CDC to study the possible connection further.

Mike Nizza, who writes a blog for the website of The New York Times, noted yesterday that only 4% of the 8m TB cases recorded annually are diagnosed as XDR. The chances of a victim being married to the daughter of an XDR-TB specialist “would have to run into (one in) the tens of millions”, Nizza wrote.

US officials said yesterday that they were making progress in contacting American passengers who sat near Speaker and his wife Sarah on European flights.

Authorities in Greece, Italy, France, the Czech Republic and Canada are also checking passenger lists on the couple’s itinerary, which began with an Air France flight from Atlanta to Paris on May 12.

Speaker, who has not been coughing or showing other symptoms of his illness, has apologised for the worry he has caused. But he is still being fiercely criticised in the US media for sticking to his wedding plans even though he was warned that he might infect other passengers in a confined cabin on a long flight.

Speaker flew back from Prague to Montreal on May 24 and then drove across the Canadian border to avoid being prevented from boarding a direct flight to America.

The border agent who let him enter the United States despite a quarantine order has since been suspended. TB tests on his bride have so far proved negative.

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