WHO Cites TB Air Travel Risk

December 17, 1998

WHO Cites TB Air Travel Risk

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Filed at 3:45 p.m. EST

By The Associated Press

GENEVA (AP) -- Air passengers crowded into poorly ventilated planes for long-haul flights might have a bigger worry than just discomfort: they could catch tuberculosis.
The World Health Organization warned Thursday that with tuberculosis increasing worldwide there was a small but real risk of catching the disease on flights over eight hours long.
``In-flight exposure to infectious tuberculosis in co-passengers has become a realistic airline possibility owing to the high prevalence of tuberculosis in some regions,'' said Dr. Claus Curdt-Christiansen, a member of a special WHO panel.
Dr. Mario Raviglione of WHO's communicable diseases unit said the risk of catching TB on an airplane ``is very low.''
But, he said, ``the risk exists. It's documented.''
The WHO report said there were no cases of passengers catching the disease itself on a flight with a TB-infected passenger. But it did cite cases when passengers caught the bacterium that causes the disease.
WHO estimates that a third of the world's population carries the bacterium. Carriers have a one-in-10 chance of contracting the disease, Raviglione said.
TB is treatable but still claims as many as 3 million lives every year. It is spread through coughing, sneezing and even talking and can be highly contagious. The germs can survive for hours in the air.
The organization released new guidelines Thursday to help airlines limit exposure. First, anyone with infectious TB should postpone travel, and anyone known to have the disease ``can and should be'' barred from flights, it said.
It recommended airlines trace and inform passengers and crew who were on a flight of more than eight hours with an infectious person. But WHO admitted that could be difficult because of incomplete airline records.
Chances of the bacterium being transmitted are greater on flights over eight hours with poor ventilation, the report said, recommending that efficient air filters be put on any such flights.
Doctors once hoped to wipe out TB, but new strains resistant to medicines have broken out. Between 1993 and 1996, TB cases increased 13 percent worldwide to 3.8 million cases, WHO said, but it said the real number of TB cases may be nearly 8 million.

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