FRENCH CAMP – A Stockton man that was held in the San Joaquin County Jail over the weekend for disobeying tuberculosis quarantine orders isn’t expected to come into contact with other inmates.

Or even breathe the same air.

Eduardo Cruz, 25, was taken into custody by law enforcement officials in Kern County on Friday after a warrant was filed for his arrest out of fear that tuberculosis – which he was diagnosed with in March – could become a major public health risk.

Part of the reason for the alarm was that Cruz initially started treatment in San Joaquin County and agreed to quarantine and a regiment that included observed therapy but failed to meet those obligations. The communicable disease, health officials worried, could have become resistant to the round of antibiotics that he was taking because he refused treatment.

Cruz was arrested last week after a traffic stop determined that he had an active warrant. While traveling to Kern County wasn’t necessarily an infraction of his quarantine order, his failure to adhere to the drug regiment when he got there was – prompting officials to notify law enforcement.

He is currently being held in a negative pressure isolation cell at the county jail. People in close quarters are more susceptible to infection if a single person with the disease resides within the population.

Several people from Manteca were arrested over the weekend, held at the San Joaquin County Jail, and subsequently released. The reverse-flow system utilized in Cruz’s cell would have prevented them from coming into contact.