Update April 12th: We still don’t know if Mbemba Ibanda (in his 20s) is a recent immigrant/refugee, but get this! He didn’t show up for court yesterday when the whole courtroom had been fitted with masks. The judge ordered an ankle bracelet and presumably officers of the court went out and found him and fitted him with his monitoring device. Reuters story here.
We don’t know yet if Christian Mbemba Ibanda is a refugee (Congolese?) or some other legal immigrant, but may learn more today after a court hearing in Champaign County, IL.
From the News Gazette (Hat tip: Robin):
CHAMPAIGN — For the second time in recent years, local health officials are turning to a state judge for help to keep a patient with tuberculosis from potentially spreading it around the community.
In a hearing set for Friday in which everyone in the room will be required to wear protective, tight-fitting masks, the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District will ask Champaign County Associate Judge Chase Leonhard to order home isolation for the patient, Christian Mbemba Ibanda, of 100 Kenwood Road, C.
Public Health Administrator Julie Pryde said she hopes the judge will order Ibanda to wear an electronic monitoring ankle bracelet.
“He couldn’t go out, or it would beep and I’d have the police there,” she said. “Without that, I have nothing I can do about it other than camping outside his door.”
TB, a contagious bacterial disease that typically attacks the lungs, has been on the decline in the U.S.
But there’s still enough of it around to require one full-time public health nurse to tend to patients who have either active or latent TB in Champaign-Urbana, Pryde said.
[….]
The hearing is set for 1:30 p.m. Friday at the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District at 201 W. Kenyon Road, C. Anyone attending will need to be there earlier for a protective mask fitting, Pryde said.
Proceedings like this are rare in Champaign County, but it’s the second time in her career with the health district that the county has had to bring a petition before the court to try and compel a TB patient to comply with home isolation and treatment, Pryde said.
Read the whole story and see how Ibanda has ignored previous pleas to stay out of the public.
We just had a post last month about the foreign-born representing the majority of TB cases in the US.
And, while researching this story, I found this very thorough article about the number of refugees (ethnic groups) that have been resettled in welcoming Illinois.
I assume we will have an update later because it appears that this story may have caught the mainstream media’s attention. If we find out he is a refugee, we will let you know.