Temperatures higher than 38.0°C leads to red faces (Image:AFP)
Posted on 04/24/2003 12:58:44 PM PDT by Prince Charles
Airports scan for SARS victims' flushed faces
17:54 24 April 03
NewScientist.com news service
In a bid to stop the alarming global spread of the deadly SARS virus, airports in the Far East have begun using thermal imaging cameras to detect the flushed faces of travellers suffering from a fever.
Other measures already deployed to try to slow the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) include compulsory quarantines, forced medical treatments and national travel bans. By Thursday, the virus had killed 263 people and infected over 4600 people in 25 different countries.
There is no cure or vaccine for SARS as yet. On Wednesday, the World Health Organization extended its unprecedented advisory against travel to infection hotspots, to include Beijing and the Shanxi province in China and Toronto in Canada.
The infra-red thermal imaging scanners are now being used at Singapore's Changi airport and Japan's Narita airport in Tokyo. Hong Kong, the worst hit region after China, is set to introduce the scanners over the coming weekend.
The technology can detect individual passengers with a temperature higher than 38.0°C or 100.4° - a telltale sign of SARS. These passengers' faces show up as a red image on the screen.
Doctor's note
Passengers with a fever stopped at Singapore's Changi airport will be taken aside by nurses for an examination. Those who have a high temperature will have to be certified by doctors as not having SARS before being allowed to fly, says the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore.
Singapore's minister for transport, Yeo Cheow Tong, pointed out that the screening would not inconvenience healthy passengers: "Not only does the scanner speed up the process tremendously, it is also hassle free."
Thermal imaging will be very good at picking up people with SARS as fever is a key symptom, says Robert Booy, an infectious diseases expert at Queen Mary, University of London. However, such screening will also select out many other people. "I suspect it will lead to chaos," says John Oxford, a virologist at Queen Mary. "You'll pick up people with 101 viruses."
More seriously, the thermal screening will only detect people who contracted SARS some days earlier and have already developed a fever. People incubating the virus will not have developed symptoms and will not be stopped. The incubation period of SARS appears to be between two to 10 days, although there is some suggestion from China that it may be as long as 16 days.
Full screening would require a test to identify asymptomatic people, Booy told New Scientist. Labs around the world are currently racing to develop fast and reliable diagnostic tests for the novel coronavirus that causes SARS.
The spread of SARS can definitely be slowed with measures like thermal screening at airports, says Booy, but his overall assessment is gloomy: "It is unlikely that this outbreak can be contained, whatever steps are taken."
Shaoni Bhattacharya
And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself-Well...How did I get here?
Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the money's gone
Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.
April 24, 2003
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