Measures in place to help guard against spread of SARS to the Czech Republic

Preventive measures have been in place for weeks on flights to Prague's Ruzyne airport, to help guard against the spread of the deadly SARS virus. Around seventeen patients in the Czech Republic have been in hospital under surveillance, but no cases have been confirmed so far. Nevertheless, experts say, it is only a matter of time before the first incidence of the virus appears even here. Jan Velinger reports.

Measures in place to help guard against spread of SARS to the Czech Republic

Hong Kong, photo: CTK

England, France, neighbouring Germany: each has already confirmed several isolated incidences of patients with SARS, and experts in the Czech Republic say it is unavoidable the disease will appear in the Czech Republic as well. Even so, the mood remains calm overall. Medical professionals are prepared and relatively confident that preventive measures at Prague airport will help reduce the risk of the disease spreading, with any incoming suspected SARS sufferer transferred to hospital immediately after touching down. Dr Ilja Chocholous, of Meditrans services, which oversees medical and ambulance procedures at Prague's Ruzyne airport, explains some of the steps that have been taken in dealing with the SARS threat:

"As you know the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced that some territories in the world, which are probably being declared as 'infectious', like Hanoi, Hong Kong, or Toronto, for instance, and the persons coming from those destinations are being informed by cabin crews, given written information about the symptoms of SARS and what to do if the person feels that something is wrong. We do have a procedure that is being evaluated by epidemiologists in the Czech Republic, we have written regulations on how to do that, how to handle such patients, how to isolate them. But, I have to say that at the moment, even if the Czech Republic has seen about seventeen to twenty patients, being examined for the infection, we at the airport haven't had any patient with symptoms of SARS or suspected symptoms of SARS."

What are some of the tools that have been prepared, disposable masks at the ready, that sort of thing?

"For instance, if some passenger in an aircraft feels the symptoms of SARS, the crew is obliged to give masks to the neighbouring rows of passengers sitting next to the 'patient'. That is why they have about ten or twenty masks for the passengers in the aircraft. So I think it is really a preventive measure to keep it in store in the aircraft. The same is for the police or customs personnel. It's quite normal that at foreign airports that police officers or customs use such masks. Here in the Czech Republic it is not necessary because the possibility to come in contact with such patient is very, very low."