Pig flu and an economic crisis...

[airtags]

no real remedies

here are the issues:

1. Inbound travellers are only thermally screened which is, at best, of notional value
2. Anyone with colds/flu on inbound a/c - are supposedly to be checked by Quarrantine Officers prior to pax disembarking
3. Notification of suffering pax to said Quarrantine Officers is arbitary and generally reliant on CC to determine (some are dilgent - some are not, [allegedly], one QF flight didn't bother to notify as the onboard Manager did not want a delay which would have meant missing aconnecting domestic flight home! Several pax later presented with symptoms.)
4. Quarrantine Officers boarding a/c have no means of diagnosis - they can only 'guess risk' based on what the pax say
5. Testing when a pax feels sick enough to go to a Doctor - which is usally a day or two later, (done with nasal & oral swabs onto viral xfer media) then takes 48 to 72 hours for initial results and high level of variance in test outcomes
6. Primary antivirals (ie Tamiflu) only effective if administered within the first 48 hours of infection - other antivirals are secondary

So in a global environment rapid transmission by airline passengers is inevitable.

Interestingly though, discounting the cruise ship cases, almost half of the national total have occurred in Victoria - with a disproportionate number of these who reportedly travelled on QF94.

AT