Interim Guidance for Airline Flight Crews & Persons

[sharon sanders]

GUIDELINES AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Interim Guidance for Airline Flight Crews and Persons
Meeting Passengers Arriving from Areas with Avian
Influenza A (H5N1)

This includes Airline Flight Crew, Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and Customs and Border
Protection (CBP) personnel
This updated interim guidance is intended to inform airline flight crews and personnel meeting arriving
passengers about recommended precautions in the event that they must interact with a person suspected
of having H5N1 avian influenza. Recommendations are based on standard infection control practices used
in health care settings and on available information about the virus that causes H5N1 avian influenza.




http://www.cdc.gov/travel/other/avian_flu_airline_cabincrew.pdf

 

[tropical]

Re: Interim Guidance for Airline Flight Crews & Persons

Opinion:

After the reading, that CDC doc seems an "better than nothing" advice for the passengers.

Recommendations in an airplain case of avian influenza can't be based on standard infection control practices used in health care settings.
The air breathed by the passengers are recicled, and re-emited.

Without special filters which can filter virus particles, the flu will spread by the air-system to the majority of the plain passengers.
Without such filters, or diferent air circles for isolated passenger decks, the passengers will not be spared.

It was wroted about the re-emited main air vents flowing air from the inner axe then absorbed from the left/right side, which maybe can spared the ones sitting all the time in the begining of the air flow.

The bolded text of washing hands with soap is also an paliative.
If you must wash your hands with soap and water (not with al. gels), you must enter the most contaminated place in the plain - the closet, which obviously will not be decontaminated every time one passenger exit it.

The complain about throwing the gloves was exact, but the subsequent suggestion of washing hands, turn over to the upper question.
If you wear gloves, you must throw it without touching the out side, then use the private desinf. gel, and for the next move put new gloves.

The guidelines and recommendations must be more costly:
- isolation of the decks, and special filters built in
- distribution of gloves, gels, and masks to all passengers
- the possibility of using oxigen masks without decompression like a way to separate the passengers air feed if the special filters are not builted, till the plain arive to the nearest place of quarantine (if the local authorities will allow their landing ...)
- no passenger eating, drinking, or using toilet if it's not urgent
- pilot cabin isolated from the begining, with apart air, and food feed storing, without contacts with the plain crew
- and so on ...