WTCNO

Tuberculosis, whooping cough, measles, mumps and typhoid fever — these are just a handful of the more than 3,000 cases of potentially infectious diseases logged among airline passengers in the last year. The data was released last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and was first reported by USA Today.

While there are no laws prohibiting sick people from traveling, health officials can prevent travel or quarantine individuals with infectious diseases. Most of the illnesses reported are easily preventable with vaccines, pills and conscious food choices, particularly for diseases such as malaria, typhoid, cholera and measles.

Reports of sick travelers grew significantly in the last year, due largely in part to the H1N1 outbreak. The reports are made by airlines, cruise ships, immigration employees and local health departments to the CDC. Since the 2007 inception of regional CDC quarantine stations, 7,000 reports of potentially infectious diseases have been received.

Among the leading reports are flu-like illnesses and gastrointestinal problems; however, the following diseases have also been widely reported:

• Tuberculosis, 662 reports
• Chicken pox and shingles, 518 reports
• Measles, 78 reports
• Mumps, 56 reports
• Whooping cough, 41 reports
• Typhoid fever, 19 reports
• Lassa fever, one report

According to the USA Today report, international travelers are failing to protect themselves from exotic diseases. According to a 2004 study by Bradley Connor, head of the New York Center for Travel and Tropical Medicine, only 36 percent of travelers sought medical advice before traveling to areas prevalent with exotic diseases and less than half (46 percent) traveled to areas with malaria with pills to prevent the disease. A recent measles outbreak has been tied to unvaccinated children who traveled to Europe, according to William Schaffner, a Vanderbilt University infectious disease expert.

While there is a relatively small possibility of a major outbreak, it is possible for fellow passengers to catch infectious diseases from other travelers on the same flight, cruise ship or tour group.