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 Alves' company, MedAir, has received a spike in calls reflecting
overblown fears of Ebola, he told a business aviation conference on
Wednesday.
A passenger from Papua New Guinea in the Pacific Ocean, north of
Australia, triggered a call by flight personnel who seized on the
word Guinea, one of the West African countries suffering from the
deadly virus that has also broken out in Liberia and Sierra Leone,
Alves said.
Another call resulted from a man who told crew his wife needed a
"favor" which they misheard as "fever."
Alves, who formerly worked as medical director at Varig Airlines in
Brazil, advocated exit screening for people leaving countries with
infectious diseases, even after the current Ebola epidemic in West
Africa passes. It should be considered "business as usual" to
contain diseases to their countries of origin, and is more effective
than screening passengers on arrival, he said
The discussion, hastily added to the agenda, drew a standing-room
only crowd at the conference, organized by the National Business
Aviation Association.
Amid talk of rising jet sales and new aircraft types, the panel of
experts urged that programs to screen passengers before they leave a
country be made permanent. Alves, who fields medical inquiries from
aircraft in flight and ships at sea, said exit screening is
difficult to do effectively in countries with poor medical care,
because people are tempted to lie about their condition to reach
better medical care elsewhere.
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Quay Snyder, chief executive officer at Aviation Medicine Advisory
Service, which advises airline unions on medical issues, said it was
important to keep the West African outbreak in perspective. Ordinary
influenza kills many thousands of people a year, and in light of
that, U.S. government policies to protect the public from Ebola are
"very reasonable," he added.
(Reporting by Barbara Liston; Editing by Alwyn Scott and Andre
Grenon)
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