Face masks must be recommended to passengers on long-haul flights: WHO

mangaloretoday.com

New Delhi, Jan 12, 2023: Officials of the World Health Organisation (WHO) have said countries should consider recommending that passengers wear masks on long-haul flights. The statement comes amid the rapid spread of the latest Omicron subvariant of Covid-19 in the United States.

 

Addressing a press conference, the WHO and European officials said the wearing of face masks should be a recommendation issued to passengers arriving from anywhere where there is widespread Covid-19 transmission.

WHO’s senior emergency officer for Europe, Catherine Smallwood said, "Countries need to look at the evidence base for pre-departure testing and if action is considered, travel measures should be implemented in a non-discriminatory manner."

That doesn’t mean the agency recommended testing for passengers from the United States at this stage, she added.

Last week, the EU’s Integrated Political Crisis Response group (IPCR), a body made up of officials from the EU’s 27 governments, also recommended all passengers on flights to and from China should wear face masks and random testing of passengers arriving from China.

Many scientists - including from the WHO - believe China is likely under-reporting the true extent of its outbreak.

The WHO is aware that the case-definition of what counts as a Covid-19 death in China is narrow and "not necessarily the case definition that WHO has recommended countries adopt", said Smallwood.

More than a dozen countries - including the United States - are demanding Covid tests from travellers from China.

XBB.1.5 - THE MOST TRANSMISSIBLE OMICRON SUBVARIANT

XBB.1.5 - the most transmissible Omicron subvariant detected so far - accounted for 27.6 per cent of Covid-19 cases in the United States for the week ended January 7, health officials have said.

It was unclear if XBB.1.5 would cause its own wave of global infections.

The variant is another descendant of Omicron, the most contagious and now globally dominant variant of the virus that causes Covid-19.

It is an offshoot of XBB, first detected in October, itself a recombinant of two other Omicron subvariants.

Concerns about XBB.1.5 fuelling a fresh spate of cases in the United States and beyond are rising amid a surge of Covid cases in China after the country pivoted away from its signature "zero COVID" policy last month.

WHAT DATA ON OMICRON VARIANTS SHOW

According to data reported by the WHO earlier this month, an analysis by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention showed a predominance of Omicron sublineages BA.5.2 and BF.7 among locally acquired infections.

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) on Tuesday issued recommendations for flights between China and the European Union including "non-pharmaceutical measures to reduce the spread of the virus, such as mask-wearing and testing of travellers, as well as monitoring of waste water as an early warning tool to detect new variants."

The agencies recommend "random testing may also be carried out on a sample of arriving passengers" and "enhanced cleaning and disinfection of aircraft serving these routes."

Courtesy: India Today