Tuberculosis couple back in Taiwan - Xinhua

HONG KONG, July 31 (Reuters) Two tuberculosis patients from Taiwan who defied a flight ban and flew to mainland China via Hong Kong have returned to Taiwan, China's official Xinhua news agency reported.

The husband and wife left China's eastern Jiangsu province on Sunday by a special ambulance after checks showed their condition allowed them to travel and they stayed in a hospital in southeastern Fujian province on Sunday night, Xinhua said.

But it did not say how or when the couple travelled from Fujian back to Taiwan, or where they are staying now.

The couple are infectious and the 55-year-old husband has multidrug-resistant TB, which is hard to treat. The wife, 57, has standard TB, which is easier to cure.

Jiangsu's Disease Control and Prevention Center said it had disinfected all the places where the couple had stayed in Jiangsu and tested those who had close contact with the couple, but found no signs of infection.

The couple flew from the Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung to Hong Kong and from Hong Kong to Nanjing in eastern China on July 21.

The couple attended a relative's wedding after arriving in Nanjing. They then went on a tour with their son, his girlfriend and the girl's parents in China's eastern Jiangsu province, including the cities of Zhenjiang, Suzhou and Yancheng, before they were tracked down by Chinese authorities in Funing.

The couple's case comes after a US lawyer set off international alarms in May for fleeing across borders when he was thought to be infected with the most dangerous form of TB, or extensively drug-resistant TB, which is very difficult to treat.

TB is a highly infectious disease that is spread by coughing and sneezing. It kills about 1.6 million people a year.

REUTERS RJ PM0950