Fear of flying and flu
Dr. Mark Gendreau flew from Boston to Orlando, Fla., recently and didn't like what he saw.
An emergency medicine specialist at Lahey Clinic and Tufts University, he was dismayed by what his fellow passengers weren't doing, in light of swine flu's spread around the world.
"I was horrified to see that most of my fellow passengers failed to periodically wash or sanitize their hands," he writes in an op-ed article in the New York Times. "Keeping our hands clean is critical, because aside from being directly coughed or sneezed upon by an infected passenger, we are most likely to catch a virus by touching a hand or an object like a seat, an overhead bin or plastic seatback tray that is contaminated with invisible droplets full of microorganisms (the bugs can survive there for many hours), and then touching our own mouth, nose or eyes."
Hand-washing is more practical than screening air passengers, but people need help to do it, he writes. And passenger cabin air quality should also be improved, he adds.
"Airports and airline personnel should be fully trained in infection control measures, and alcohol-based gel hand sanitizers should be available throughout airports and aboard aircraft," he says. "The cruise ship industry has been doing this for years."
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Elizabeth Cooney is a former
health reporter for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, where she also was a
business reporter and an editor. Earlier in her career, she edited medical
books and journals at Little, Brown, and worked for Boston magazine.Boston Globe Health and Science staff:
- Gideon Gil, Health and Science Editor
- Ishani Ganguli, Short White Coat blogger
Airlines personnel, buy not following professional guidelines, are causing pandemic spread of disease and possible deaths.
I was an infection control practitioner. Recently, on a Delta flight, I witnessed the usual coughing, sniffling, nose wiping behavior of passengers, who then touched every seatback as they moved through the cabin. The Flight Attendants touched the same places. As they dispensed beverages, they leaned on these same seatbacks and their hands met the fingers of the passengers as they picked up more pathogens. Then they plunged their filthy, contaminated hands into the beverage cart ice, without using the MANDATORY ice scoops (which would prevent their hands from touching the ice eventually in passengers’ cups). I asked, “Doesn’t Delta provide ice scoops? (that every restaurant MUST use)” And the FA replied, “We prefer to not use them.” I guess they prefer to cause worldwide pandemics and deaths intead.