UPDATE 1-EU seeks air travellers who sat near TB patient

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European Union countries are seeking to trace passengers who sat near a man infected with a dangerous strain of tuberculosis on two transatlantic flights, the European Commission said on Thursday.

The passengers concerned were on Air France flight 385, which departed Atlanta on May 12 and arrived in Paris on May 13, and people aboard Czech Air flight 410 from Prague to Montreal in Canada on May 24.

The EU executive said in a statement the search was on for passengers who had sat in the same row as the man or in the two rows in front of or behind him, as well as the cabin crews, on the advice of the European Centre for Disease Control (ECDC).

"The ECDC's advice is that the risk for these persons is very limited, other passengers are not considered at risk," the Commission said.

The Czech Republic's chief hygienist Michael Vit told Reuters 29 passengers who sat up to two rows behind and in front of the infected man on the Prague-Montreal flight would be asked to undergo tests.

These include five Czech nationals, all of whom are in North America, who will be asked to get tested upon their return to the Czech Republic.

Governments of the foreign nationals among the passengers will be informed their citizens were on the flight, he said.

Vit said those of the cabin crew who served the section of the airplane where the man sat would also be tested. An additional 16 Czech passengers on the plane will also be offered examination on a voluntary basis.

The CDC's on both sides of the Atlantic said the patient is not likely to have been highly infectious.

The decision follows Wednesday's announcement by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that the man -- now under isolation in a hospital near his home in Atlanta -- had fled across Europe to avoid detention by health officials.

Despite knowing he had drug-resistant tuberculosis, or XDR-TB, he travelled with his wife on honeymoon to Italy earlier this month. Authorities told him he would be banned from flying.

The man began his trip in Atlanta on May 12, flying to Paris, then Athens, Santorini in Greece, back to Athens, to Rome and finally Prague. He then flew to Montreal and drove from there over the border from Canada to New York. (Additional reporting by Jan Lopatka in Prague)

[BRUSSELS/Reuters/Finance.cz]