Posted on 03/26/2007 6:14:38 PM PDT by Michael_Michaelangelo
(CBS) NEWARK, N.J. Agents from the Centers for Disease Control boarded a Continental Airlines flight at Newark Liberty International Airport Monday afternoon after it remained grounded on the tarmac for two hours because several passengers had fallen ill.
CBS 2 learned that seven people were treated for flu-like symptoms, but were not hospitalized.
Continental Airlines flight 98 from Hong Kong landed at Newark about 2 p.m. with 272 passengers on board. It is not known yet what caused the passengers to become ill, but authorities in Newark were notified of the situation mid-flight and the CDC was called to the scene.
CBS 2 has also learned that several of the passengers boarded the plane in Hong Kong already suffering from the symptoms. Other passengers then apparently grew sick during the 16-hour flight, experiencing the symptoms, including coughing and dehydration.
"I heard some people coughing and thought, 'Well that doesn't sound good,' but I don't know if anyone was really sick. It sounded like a deeper cough than a normal cough," passenger Susan Blair told CBS 2.
"There was a party of Europeans that spent three weeks in China and a lot of them were sick on the way back," passenger John Hibbert said. "They wouldn't let us deplane, they said that the CDC were coming on board."
Passengers were forced to wait two hours before leaving the plane while they waited for CDC agents to arrive.
"At this time we do not have a medical assessment from CDC. It is believed that the ill passengers are part of a group of more than 80 tourists who sailed together on a river cruise in Asia," an official for Continental Airlines said in a statement.
One of the people on the river cruise told CBS 2 that members of the group that initially grew ill had experienced cold symptoms from traveling in tight quarters together for so long as part of a tour. "180 people on seven buses, so everybody together for 21 days a lot of people caught the cold," passenger Claude Aussant said. "We took a lot of tours from Beijing, Shanghai, Yangtze River, and finished in Hong Kong."
Passengers were allowed off the plane about 4 p.m. All seven passengers feeling ill were released by Global Migration and Quarantine specialists.
The final destination of the passengers is Montreal. They were scheduled to land in Newark to switch planes.
CBS 2 is monitoring this developing story and will provide new information as soon as it becomes available.
SARS?
I've flown in and out of that airport many times.
SARS?
No, it's just New Jersey.
;-)
crap
Hong Kong Fluy ???
Bird Flu scare at Newark Airport? A Continental airlines flight departed Hong Kong at 11 am with 272 passengers on board and arrived at 2 p.m. in Newark, New Jersey with sick passengers.
The crew of Flight 98 noticed that several passengers appeared ill during the flight and airline officials notified health authorities in the U.S., according to Newsday.
The Federal Centers for Disease Control sent members of its Global Migration and Quarantine Office from LaGuardia Airport in New York to Newark to check out the passengers, reports the Newark Star Ledger.
Shelly Diaz of the CDC said they concluded the illness was "seasonal flu." The passengers were then cleared to leave.
Some were already ill when they boarded the flight but more became sick in flight, said Curtis Allen of the CDC. But, due the origin of the flight, bird flu had to be a consideration.
Maybe the plane sucked in some New Jersey air. That would account for the symptoms.
A contageous disease is suspected. I have no symptoms, but I am forced to stay on the plane inches from people who are coughing, wheezing, using their air sickness bags, whatever.
Brilliant!
And speaking of "Brilliant," I'll bet I couldn't even get a beer while I was imprisoned.
Never order the Fugu.
Bird flu is contracted by people who live with their poultry (as in...in their homes). They tend to be uneducated and impoverished. Hand washing is not common.
They don't have the means ($) to fly from Hong Kong to NJ.
I've never had a flu shot and I have never come down with the annual communicable flu that sweeps the world each year.
Wash your hands.
Oh, and, flame away.
ping
Did they have the chicken or fish?
Ping.
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