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American Airlines confirmed Friday that a passenger arriving at Miami International Airport Thanksgiving night appeared to be suffering from cholera and experienced symptoms during the flight, according to the Miami Herald.

The man, whose name was not released, was a passenger on American Airlines Flight #778 from Santo Domingo, not directly from neighboring Haiti, where an outbreak of cholera in recent weeks has killed hundreds of people.

“Before landing, the crew radioed down and advised they had a passenger onboard who had symptom that appeared to be cholera and he would need immediate medical attention the minute they landed,” Tim Smith, a spokesman for American Airlines, told the paper.

Emergency workers the airport were waiting for the flight and the man was rushed to a local hospital. Test results haven’t been released.

Although the disease can be contagious, other passengers on the flight should not be affected, the paper says.

Smith also told the paper that if the passenger had appeared ill at boarding he would not have been allowed on the flight.

“To our knowledge, it’s still considered a suspect case,” Kristen Nordlund, a spokeswoman for Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told the paper. “It has not been confirmed as cholera.”

Posted Nov 26 2010 2:59PM