- The Airlines Operators Committee (AOC) appealed Tuesday for medical screening of passengers arriving at Saudi airports as world health officials admitted they were powerless to halt the spread of swine flu and Israel confirmed the first case of infection in the Middle East. The disease, while still largely corralled in North America, has spread rapidly within days – to eight countries as of Tuesday. The World Health Organization raised its global alert level on Monday to phase 4, indicating a significantly increased risk of a pandemic. AOC Chairman Muhammad Yateem said that around 30 international airlines that are AOC members operate daily flights to the Kingdom from a number of European countries and the US alone. Additionally several flights arrive daily from Asia. “We already dispatched a letter to GACA requesting them to look into the matter and take some serious steps immediately, such as posting medical experts and certain monitoring devices at the airports,” said Yateem, a Bahraini who is also the Gulf Air airport manager. Airports in the United Arab Emirates, one of the world's premier flight hubs, have already been placed under strict surveillance to spot anyone arriving who might have swine flu. In Singapore, Thailand, Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines – where memories of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003 remain fresh – authorities dusted off thermal scanners and were checking for signs of fever among passengers from North America. South Korea, India and Indonesia also announced screening. “We want to know if such a system is in place at various international airports in the Kingdom,” Yateem said about the AOC's letter of appeal to the General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA). K. Pillai, General Manager Emirate Air, said the daily Dubai-Riyadh flight carries international passengers from a number of countries, including the US and Europe. “However, our airline has not been notified about any precautionary measures taken at the airport” here, he said. Akaruvan Saleem, marketing manager of Lufthansa-Swiss Airlines, when asked if any precautionary measures were being taken at Saudi airports, said, “so far nothing that I know of.” He said that 26 Lufthansa-Swiss flights arrive weekly at Jeddah, Riyadh and Dammam airports with around 70 percent load. There has been no change in the number of passengers coming from Europe and the US since the outbreak of swine flu last week, he said. In Mexico, epicenter of the outbreak, 152 people were now believed to have died from the virus. The number of known cases in the US more than doubled while six other countries said they had confirmed their first casualties. The WHO has singled out air travel as an easy way the virus could spread, estimating that up to 500,000 people are on planes at any time. But the organization cast doubt Tuesday on the effectiveness of airport screening. “Border controls do not work. Screening doesn't work,” WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said in Geneva. “If a person has been exposed or infected... the person might not be symptomatic at the airport,” he said. “We learn as we go on. SARS was a huge learning experience for all of us.” Keiji Fukuda, acting WHO assistant director-general for health, security and the environment, said that given the widespread nature of the virus, all corners of the world are at potential risk. “I think that in this age of global travel, where people move around in airplanes so quickly, there is no region to which this virus could not spread,” Fukuda said. The outbreak was too “widespread to make containment a feasible” strategy, he added. Fukuda's line was echoed by the European Union health commissioner Androulla Vassiliou who said that while precautionary measures were advisable, “at this juncture I don't see any point on restricting traveling.” All transmission of the disease so far appears to have been human-to-human and not from animal or other contact, according to the WHO. “If the virus is an efficient virus, if it spreads easily from human to human, it will probably continue to spread,” Hartl said
