Work

Transmission of SARS-CoV 2 During Long-Haul Flight

Year: 2020

Type: article

Abstract: D uring the first 6 months of 2020, severe acute re- spiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) spread to almost all countries and infected ≈4 million persons worldwide (1).Air travel is contributing to the extent and speed of the pandemic spread through the movement of infected persons (2-4); consequently, in March, many countries either completely halted or substantially reduced air travel.Spread of SARS-CoV-2 across international borders by infected travelers has been well documented (5,6); however, evidence and in-depth assessment of the risk for transmission from infected passengers to other passengers or crew members during the course of a flight (in-flight transmission) are limited.Although the international flight industry has judged the risk for in-flight transmission to be very low (7), long flights in particular have become a matter of increasing concern as many countries have started lifting flight restrictions despite ongoing SARS-CoV-2 transmission (8).The first case of coronavirus disease (CO-VID-19) in Vietnam was recorded on January 23, 2020; the patient was a visitor from Wuhan, China (9).On January 24, Vietnam suspended air travel from mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan and, as the epidemic spread worldwide, gradually expanded travel bans, mandatory quarantine, and testing measures to incoming passengers from other countries (10).In early March, when much of the global community was just beginning to recognize the severity of the pandemic, we detected a cluster of COVID-19 cases among passengers arriving on the same flight from London, UK, to Hanoi, Vietnam, on March 2 (Vietnam Airlines flight 54 [VN54]).At that time, importation of COVID-19 had been documented in association with 3 flights to Vietnam, including a cluster of 6 persons who had index cases and were evacuated from Wuhan; 6 secondary cases and resulted from virus transmission in Vietnam (11).No in-depth investigations among passengers on those flights were conducted, and no evidence indicated that transmission had occurred during the flights themselves.Initial investigations of flight VN54 led us to hypothesize potential in-flight transmission originating from 1 symptomatic passenger in business class (the Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 During Long-Haul Flight

Source: Emerging infectious diseases

DOI: 10.3201/eid2611.203299