FinnAir, the national carrier of Finland, has announced today that it will not allow passengers carrying the H1N1 virus onto scheduled flights. Virgin Atlantic has also announced that anyone suffering from the condition would be prevented from flying until they could provide a fit-to-fly certificate from their doctor or a hospital.
Check In Guidance
Among a wave of new contingency measures that look to be set to be implemented across the world in the wake of the crisis, check-in staff will now receive instruction to alert on-hand physicians to travellers who appear to be suffering from flu-like conditions.
Airlines such as British Airways have employed specialist 24-hour medical staff to assess the condition of passengers and their potential to spread the disease abroad.
"If there are signs of something being wrong, be it excessive sneezing or coughing, not looking well, or a case of high temperature, then the airport staff can call in a medical team for extra advice”, said Paul Charles, Director of Communications for Virgin Atlantic.
Controversial Measures
The new procedures have come in from severe criticism for consumer advocacy groups for the potential confusion that may be created during a busy holiday season. Likewise, some medical experts have suggested that expecting airline staff to diagnose the condition is “an utter nonsense”.
Dr Peter Holden, the British Medical Association’s lead representative on pandemic flu, told The Times of London that he was advising doctors not to issue the notes.
“It is a total and utter waste of time,” said Dr Holden.“A fit-note is only going to be valid at the moment of issue. You could easily become ill between leaving the GP’s surgery and reaching the airport. It flies in the face of government efforts to relieve pressure on doctors, and we have much more important work to do than this.”
Travellers Quarantined
The new directive comes in the wake of a number of Swine Flu quarantining incidents that have occurred across the world. More than fifty British school children and their teachers are currently being held in a Beijing hospital after the virus was detected on a flight travelling from London. Similarly, more than forty passengers travelling from Melbourne, Australia have been quarantined in Shanghai after a passenger aboard a Qantas flight was diagnosed with the condition.
“An hour before the plane was due to arrive in Shanghai the air crew went around and took everybody's temperature and someone had a high temperature and then they decided to quarantine a certain number of people around that person”, Luke Hamilton, a brother-in-law of one the quarantined passengers, told the <i>Sydney Morning Herald</i>.
"The whole process and procedure seemed pretty weird, I don't know how they decide who to quarantine."
A third incident took place in Venezuela, in which 1,219 passengers and 460 crew members were quarantined on a ship destined for Caracas following the diagnosis of Swine Flu in three of the crew.
State Department Warnings
State health departments and public health authorities worldwide are warning sufferers not to attempt to fly. The pandemic has now killed around 430 people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
