Posted on 04/12/2006 2:48:21 PM PDT by neverdem
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ATLANTA -- Two infected airline passengers may have helped spread Iowa's mumps epidemic to six other Midwestern states, health officials said Wednesday, the latest example of how quickly disease can spread through air travel.
"These people may have exposed other people on those planes or in these airports," said Kevin Teale, a spokesman for the Iowa Department of Public Health.
The mumps epidemic is the nation's first in 20 years. Health officials say 515 suspected cases have been reported in Iowa, and the disease also has been seen in six neighboring states, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As of Monday, Nebraska has 43 reported cases; Kansas, 33; Illinois, four; Missouri, four; Wisconsin, four; and Minnesota, one.
The Iowa health department identified two people who were potentially infectious when they were traveling in late March and early April.
Officials in other states have not yet linked any cases to the air travelers. But because the illness's incubation is two to three weeks, cases may not begin appearing until about now, Teale said.
This week the CDC put out an advisory about the passengers to state health departments. "Infectious diseases can travel easily on planes and other modes of transportation," said Dr. Jane Seward, acting deputy director of the CDC's viral diseases division.
The first traveler is executive director of a Waterloo, Iowa, downtown development organization who in late March was in a delegation that traveled to Washington, D.C.
The woman, Terry Poe Buschkamp, had earlier visited the Dominican Republic where she thinks she may have caught the bug. Health officials did not release her name, but she has acknowledged her infection to the media.
Buschkamp, 51, left Waterloo, Iowa, on March 26 on a Mesaba Airlines flight to Minneapolis and then flew Northwest Airlines to Detroit. On March 26, she flew to Washington, D.C.'s Reagan National Airport. During her visit, she shook hands with Iowa's two U.S. senators, Tom Harkin and Charles Grassley, she said.
She returned to Waterloo on March 29 on Northwest and Mesaba flights, with a stop in Minneapolis.
She said she developed a scratchy throat upon her return, and after hearing reports of a mumps outbreak, went to a doctor for testing. She got confirmatory test results six days later.
During those six days, she had been to church and numerous work events, including an April 1 pub crawl that involved about 370 people. Mumps has been a mild disease for most people, but Buschkamp found the length of time she was able to spread the virus before learning her test results alarming.
"That's the real story," she said.
She said two of her fellow travelers have told her they have mumps-like symptoms, but have declined to see a doctor about it.
The second person was a young man returning from vacation in Arizona on April 1, Teale said.
He flew American Airlines, from Tucson to Dallas, then to Lafayette, Ark., to St. Louis and finally to Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Two people - and nine flights? "It's hard to get anywhere (from Iowa) without connecting," Teale explained.
Mumps is a virus-caused illness spread by coughing and sneezing. The most common symptoms are fever, headache and swollen salivary glands under the jaw. But it can lead to more severe problems, such as hearing loss, meningitis and fertility-diminishing swollen testicles.
No deaths have been reported from the current epidemic.
A two-dose mumps vaccine is recommended for all children, and is considered highly - but not completely - effective against the illness. About a quarter of the Iowans who have suspected cases got the vaccine, Teale said.
I have a teeny problem with this gal from Iowa. She knew she was being tested for an infectious disease, and almost certainly knew it would take several days to get the test results (not uncommon with mumps testing. So, she went all these places and exposed all these people, knowingly?? You can't help exposing people before you are aware that you have something. You don't have to expose the rest of the world once you know there's a good possibility that you're contagious.
Smoke is an irritant, so as long as they allowed smoking on board, they had to exchange the air.
Exchanging the air required fuel.
They tried non-smoking flights, but no one would fly on them - so they lobbied for a federal law to make all flights non-smoking.
No smoke, no air exchange.
No air exchange, the airlines save fuel (and money).
No air exchange, and one passanger with ebola means everyone on the flight will have it, by the time you land.
Sort of like mumps.
Only, most of us are vaccinated against mumps...
Wow, I had no idea that the airlines have completely stopped air exchange.
I'm sure you can back that up, NOT.
Have fun, learn something, get an MSOR, then feel free to talk to me.
Until then, go away.
Last I saw the fraction of those with mumps who'd been vaccinated had been higher than this. However, since Iowa now has more cases of mumps than the whole country has had for awhile I hope the CDC does some good epidemiology on this. I've heard rumors that an alas popular, double alas locally invented "health care" "profession" had been telling parents NOT to get their children vaccinated and supporting their exemptions from the usual school requirements. I'm in the wrong medical specialty to know whether the rumors are true, or to judge how commonly such, IMHO stupid, advice is followed. But if the rumors are true they could explain why we are having such an epidemic in Iowa. The political lobby in Iowa for those rumored is quite powerful so I'd prefer the CDC to investigate so as to have a better chance that the politically incorrect questions get asked and tallied. From what I've read so far this outbreak doesn't seem to be centered on our low tech religious areas like the Amanas so I doubt traditional religious exemptions have contributed much to it.
OK, I'll put it this way.
You are lying, and air is still exchanged on airplanes.
I was working as a Travel Agent at the time Northwest started pushing for a smoking ban. I was working with a male Travel Agent who used to work for Pan Am.
A few years after Northwest went smoke free, he found out that their filters are filthier then they EVER were when there was a smoking section on their planes. They feel they do not have to change the filters as much since there is no smoking. Well, guess what! Can you just imagine all the germs and bacteria that is being pushed back into the cabin from such filthy filters?
And it's not just Northwest today. ALL US airlines were forced to go smoke free, and most of the European carriers as well.
I hope I NEVER have to fly again!
I fly about twice a week, you know. ;)
Same here. Except for private aircraft!!
Wear a face mask. You can get a whole box cheap at Rite Aide. :)
Ok, not to step into the middle of a snit storm.
Air is typically exchanged 50/50, external/recirc in modern aircraft. This is adjustable to 100/0 if the cabin fills with smoke(or bio hazard emergencies) on all modern aircraft. In the 60-70s, the ratio was higher, in the earliest pressurized craft, it was always 100/0. Fuel economy was the reason for adding the re-circ.
Interesting enough, the front turbine compresses the air and it gets hot enough to make it essentially sterile. I would suspect that aircraft flying into and out of hot zones will be 100 external air.
"She said two of her fellow travelers have told her they have mumps-like symptoms, but have declined to see a doctor about it."
But of course they self-diagnose themselves. Now they'll spread it all over.
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A two-dose mumps vaccine is recommended for all children, and is considered highly - but not completely - effective against the illness. About a quarter of the Iowans who have suspected cases got the vaccine, Teale said.
What this means is that the effectiveness of vaccination probably most of us received in childhood has diminishted beyond useful.
Yep.
It is still true that mumps can cause sterility in males.
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