PMID- 18761951
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20081017
LR  - 20220223
IS  - 1560-7917 (Electronic)
IS  - 1025-496X (Linking)
VI  - 13
IP  - 23
DP  - 2008 Jun 5
TI  - Surveillance of air-travel-related tuberculosis incidents, England and Wales: 
      2007-2008.
LID - 18896 [pii]
AB  - The potential spread of tuberculosis (TB) from infectious passengers during air 
      travel has recently received increasing attention in the media and from public 
      health authorities. We reviewed all air travel-related tuberculosis incidents 
      reported to the Health Protection Agency Centre for Infections between January 
      2007 and February 2008 in England and Wales and investigated the effectiveness of 
      contact investigation. Incidents involving air travel were defined according to 
      the World Health Organization's guidelines on TB and Air Travel. We collected 
      data on the index case, the incident and the outcome of contact investigation 
      where available. We identified 24 incidents involving 39 flights. The median 
      flight duration was 8.9 hours (inter-quartile range (IQR) 8 to 11.7). Most 
      flights (36) were from or to a high burden country and 19 of the 24 incidents 
      reported had a smear-positive index case. Two index cases had multidrug-resistant 
      tuberculosis. In 17 incidents, no further investigation could be undertaken due 
      to the lack of passenger information. In the remaining seven incidents, the 
      quality of contact information obtained was variable. No further cases of TB 
      infection or disease were identified. This study suggests that the process of 
      investigating passenger contacts of a TB infected individual travelling by air is 
      complicated and usually unsuccessful without dedicated resources and availability 
      of high-quality contact information from airlines. Further research into the 
      effectiveness of contact investigation in this setting is needed.
FAU - Abubakar, I
AU  - Abubakar I
AD  - Tuberculosis Section, Respiratory Diseases Department, Centre for Infections, 
      Health Protection Agency, London, United Kingdom. ibrahim.abubakar@hpa.org.uk
FAU - Welfare, R
AU  - Welfare R
FAU - Moore, J
AU  - Moore J
FAU - Watson, J M
AU  - Watson JM
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
DEP - 20080605
PL  - Sweden
TA  - Euro Surveill
JT  - Euro surveillance : bulletin Europeen sur les maladies transmissibles = European 
      communicable disease bulletin
JID - 100887452
SB  - IM
MH  - Aircraft/*statistics & numerical data
MH  - Disease Outbreaks/*prevention & control/*statistics & numerical data
MH  - England/epidemiology
MH  - Humans
MH  - Prevalence
MH  - Travel/*statistics & numerical data
MH  - Tuberculosis/*epidemiology/*prevention & control
MH  - Wales/epidemiology
EDAT- 2008/09/03 09:00
MHDA- 2008/10/18 09:00
CRDT- 2008/09/03 09:00
PHST- 2008/09/03 09:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2008/10/18 09:00 [medline]
PHST- 2008/09/03 09:00 [entrez]
AID - 18896 [pii]
PST - epublish
SO  - Euro Surveill. 2008 Jun 5;13(23):18896.