Originally published October 3 2005
SARS screening at airports ruled out as a method of prevention
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Britain's Health Protection Agency, after considering the possible benefits of screening for SARS and influenza, concluded that it would not prove an effective deterrent to the spread of these illnesses.
If there is a major outbreak of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) or influenza, air travel is the most probable route of international infection.
But researchers at Britain's Health Protection Agency (HPA) who assessed the benefit of screening if an epidemic occurred said it would not pick up enough cases to be worthwhile.
In the case of SARS the incubation period is too long for pre-flight screening to offer any guarantee of spotting a carrier, while carriers of influenza are already infective up to two days before symptoms become apparent.
"The benefits are likely to be pretty small in terms of the number of people you are likely to pick up," Dr Richard Pitman, of the HPA which monitors infectious diseases, said in an interview.
The scientists used incubation periods for SARS and influenza to estimate the proportion of air passengers with latent infection who would develop symptoms during a flight to Britain from 100 destinations.
Their findings, which are reported online by the British Medical Journal, are based on the assumption that exit screening would be done in the countries the passengers are arriving from.
SARS is a viral respiratory illness that infected more than 8,000 people worldwide and killed nearly 800 during an outbreak in 2003.
They are keeping close tabs on the H5N1 strain of bird flu that originated in Asia and which they fear could spark the next pandemic.
Flu sufferers can pass on the illness one or two days before they develop symptoms but scientists are not sure if the same is true for people infected with SARS.
"Screening passengers from the Far East and Australasia therefore derives the most benefit.
Even then, the sensitivity for cities in these areas would still be too low," Pitman, an infectious disease modeller who looks at different scenarios and interventions and potential impacts, said in the report.
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