Health officials hunt 27 bus passengers

US officials are on the look out for 27 people who may have contracted tuberculosis (TB) from a passenger on a bus.

The woman was infectious, Ontario health officials told Detroit News, adding that she would have been coughing a lot.

TB can be spread easily in a close environment like a bus through coughing or sneezing.

Health workers have called for the people who were travelling on a Greyhound bus from Toronto to Detroit on August 31st to contact them.

Dr Allen Heimann, the medical officer for health for the city of Windsor and county of Essex in Ontario, told Detroit News the test for TB would be a skin test.

Meanwhile, TB hospitalisation figures across the US have fallen during the last 11 years, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

The number of patients dropped to 8,800 in 2006 from 15,000 in 1995.

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