Delta Passengers Quarantined Over Bug Bites

Rash on flier from Uganda triggers health scare
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 27, 2012 12:09 AM CDT
Updated Apr 27, 2012 12:29 AM CDT
Delta Passengers Quarantined Over Bug Bites
Fire and ambulance crews surround the plane after it landed at Chicago's Midway Airport.   (AP Photo/WLS-TV)

Dozens of Delta passengers spent a nervous two hours quarantined on a plane in Chicago before health officials decided a passenger's mysterious rash was caused by bedbug bites, not a tropical disease. Passenger Lise Seivers noticed she had a small rash before boarding her flight in Uganda. While she didn't think much of it, worried family members contacted health officials, who contacted the Centers for Disease Control, which set up the quarantine. Health officials wearing face masks boarded the plane to take photos of the rash.

Initially, "there was a good amount of panic and disbelief," but people relaxed as they realized the situation wasn't serious, one passenger tells CBS. Seivers had been in Uganda adopting two special-needs children and was on her way home to Minnesota for another son's graduation, reports the Red Wing Republican Eagle, her hometown paper. Seivers is in good spirits, despite the scare—but went to a Chicago hospital after leaving the plane to double-check the CDC's diagnosis, according to her son. (More Delta Air Lines stories.)

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