Thread: GA: Teen (illegal) jailed for TB

ajc.com > Metro > Gwinnett
Jailed teen with TB taking meds

By CRAIG SCHNEIDER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 08/27/07
The 17-year-old Gwinnett County resident jailed for refusing tuberculosis treatment has agreed to take medicine, but he will remain in a medical isolation cell until a court hearing Sept. 5, health officials said Monday.

Meanwhile, he wants to see his mother.

Gwinnett health officials say Francisco Santos, who they identified as a day laborer from Mexico, has started taking his medicine since he was jailed Friday.

"So far he has been compliant with the treatment, and tolerating the medicine well," said Gwinnett health chief Dr. Lloyd Hofer.

Gwinnett health officials jailed Santos Friday after after he appeared at the Gwinnett Medical Center showing symptoms of tuberculosis, including night sweats and coughing up blood. But he refused to accept treatment for the case of active, contagious tuberculosis, and threatened to leave the country to return to his native Mexico, health officials said.

Gwinnett Sheriff Butch Conway said that federal immigration agents will interview Santos in the next day or so regarding his immigration status and determine whether he should be deported at some time.

"He will be screened for citizenship," Conway said.

For now, Santos and his family are cooperating with the health officials, who updated his case at a press conference Monday. They expect a full recovery for him.

Santos' mother, Enriqueta Palacios, said she last saw her son on Friday.

"He's well. He's being treated," his mother said in Spanish. "He's recuperating."

She said that she is very upset about what has happened to her son, and that he will not leave the country.

"Do you think I would let him leave while he is sick?" she said. "I want him to recuperate and get better."

She declined to comment on his residency status.

Eight of Santos' family members are being tested for tuberculosis, with results expected in a few days. If one tests positive, officials said they will expand the testing to others who came in contact with him. Officials asked others who were in regular close contact with him to come forward for testing.

Meanwhile, officials could not gauge the level of any public threat, since it remains unknown whether Santos infected anyone.

While officials say he is cooperating and recovering â€â€

Things reached the point of being rediculous in this country about five or six years ago.......I don't even know what you'd call it now.

We warned them and warned them about the TB cases coming across the border......they could have cared less.

Our elected government officials do not stand in lines and go to school with illegals and neither do their children. Ours do.

Maybe some of the police departments will care about their people when they hear about this.

They won't care until illegal immigration effects them.

Sounds like the whole family is probably illegal. For those wondering, the mothers inability to speak English and her refusal to comment on her sons immigration status was my first and second clue.

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