Transmission: Control issues

Abstract

The USS Richard E. Byrd left its Norfolk, Virginia port in January 1965, bound for the Mediterranean. The 4,000- tonne destroyer carried more than 300 sailors — one of whom was infected with Mycobac- terium tuberculosis, the bacteria that cause tuberculosis (TB). By the time he left the ship more than a year later, coughing violently, almost half the crew had acquired silent infec- tions and seven of his cabin mates and other close contacts had full-blown TB.