February 13, 2020

Interventions targeting air travellers early in the pandemic may delay local outbreaks of SARS-CoV-2

Category: Article Summary

Topic: Public Health Policy and Practice

• Clifford et al. examine the effectiveness of air travel-related intervention at preventing 2019-nCoV outbreaks in previously unaffected regions. They examine screening for symptoms at departure or arrival, sensitization of arrivals to signs of illness, and a combination of both practices. This information is combined with R0 estimates and number of infected travelers arriving on a weekly basis to assess time until a region reaches the “outbreak threshold.”
• Air traveler-targeted interventions can delay 2019-nCoV outbreaks for weeks and potentially months, when the number of infected travelers remains low. With more infected travelers, the delay in onset of a local outbreak declines rapidly. Combining syndromic screening with traveler sensitization has the greatest potential to effectively delay outbreak onset.

Clifford et al. (Feb 13, 2020). Interventions targeting air travellers early in the pandemic may delay local outbreaks of SARS-CoV-2. Pre-print downloaded Feb 13 from https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.12.20022426v1