Norovirus on planes

Posted on July 31, 2020 by Douglas Powell

Human norovirus (HuNoV) is one of the leading causes of acute gastroenteritis globally. HuNoV outbreaks have been recently reported during air travels. Contaminated surfaces are known as a critical transmission route at various settings. The aim of this study was to provide key information about the survival and the decontamination of HuNoV on three commonly touched airplane cabin surfaces.

In this study, we monitored the survival of HuNoV on seat leather, plastic tray table, and seatbelt for 30 days, with and without additional organic load (simulated gastric fluid). The efficacy of two EPA registered anti-norovirus disinfectants were also evaluated. Results showed that HuNoV was detected at high titers (>4 log10 genomic copy number) for up to 30 days when additional organic load was present. Both tested disinfectants were found highly ineffective against HuNoV when the surface was soiled. The study showed that when the organic load was present, HuNoV was highly stable and resistant against disinfectants.

Findings from this study indicated that appropriate procedures should be developed by airline companies with the help of public health authorities to decrease passengers’ exposure risk to HuNoV.

Survival and inactivation of human norovirus GII.4 Sydney on commonly touched airplane cabin surfaces

Public Health 29 July 2020

Dorra Djebbi-Simmons, Mohammed Alhejaili, Marlene Janes, Joan King and Wenqing Xu*

DOI: 10.3934/publichealth.2020046

https://www.aimspress.com/fileOther/PDF/aimsph/publichealth-07-03-046.pdf

‘Everyone who ate fish on this flight will get sick’ Improving airplane food safety

Posted on January 26, 2020 by Douglas Powell

Food contamination during air travel presents unique risks to those affected. Foodborne pathogens can cause serious illness among all on board, and potentially jeopardize flight safety. These risks are likely to increase with current trends of “densification” and a predicted massive expansion of air travel. While aircraft are being equipped with ever newer designs with a focus on efficiency and comfort, regulations remained largely unmodified in terms of basic hygiene requirements.

Strict guidelines for food hygiene exist for on-ground food settings and catering kitchens. There is uncertainty about hygiene standards on board commercial aircraft, and little regulatory oversight of what happens to food in-flight. In two hypothetical scenarios we indicate the potential risks associated with poor food handling practice onboard aircraft, with the ultimate aim of bringing aviation food safety in line with on-ground regulations. Changes in cabin design alongside adequate training in safe food handling have the potential to increase public health protection. We urge a review of existing in-flight hygiene protocols to better direct the development of regulation, prevention, and intervention measures for aviation food safety.

In-flight transmission of foodborne disease: How can airlines improve?

Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease

Andrea Grout, Elizabeth Speakman

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tmaid.2020.101558

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1477893920300089

That smell: Transavia ‘passenger’s body odour caused others to vomit and faint’

Posted on June 3, 2018 by Douglas Powell

Keeping with the aeronautical theme, Belgian broadcaster VRT reports a passenger on a Transavia flight smelt so bad that other passengers started fainting and vomiting after the flight took off from Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport,.

Staff on board the Transavia jet reportedly tried to quarantine him in a toilet before the pilot diverted the flight.

The Boeing 737 is said to have landed in the city of Faro, in the Algarve region of southern Portugal, so the foul-smelling man could be removed from the flight.

A picture taken by one of the passengers claims to show medical personnel taking him from the plane to a bus.

Belgian passenger Piet van Haut described the stench of the man in question as “unbearable”.

He said: “It was like he hadn’t washed himself for several weeks.

“Several passengers got sick and had to puke.”

Transavia confirmed the emergency landing saying it was due to “medical reasons”.

It is not known why the man smelt so bad and what other medical issues he was suffering from.

In February, a Transavia plane from Dubai to Amsterdam was forced to make an emergency landing in the Austrian capital of Vienna after a passenger, who could not stop farting, caused a brawl between passengers.

Airplane! Oscar: ‘Pretty much everyone on the plane threw up’

Posted on March 5, 2018 by Douglas Powell

Family Guy crooner Seth MacFarlane tweeted about the Academy Awards, which just ended, that until a movie like “Bridesmaids” or “Airplane!” gets a Best Picture win or even a nomination, it’s all conspicuously incomplete. “Get Out” is a breath of fresh air to be sure, but it’s the exception.

I retweeted that I responded to an inquiry today about Salmonella in eggs, wrote that pasteurized eggs are available, and don’t call me Shirley.

(Get Out was a fairly great movie. Airplane! still stands up to repeat viewing).

In honour of Airplane!, CNN is reporting that after making it through a tough patch of turbulence as a plane headed toward Washington Dulles International Airport, the pilot sent a report to the Aviation Weather Center.

The center, which is run by the National Weather Service, swiftly relayed the message to its Twitter followers. It was a report from a pilot that no passenger wants to hear. “Pretty much everyone on the plane threw up,” the tweet said.

The pilot of the flight, which took off in Charlottesville, Virginia, was able to send the message as soon as it got close enough to the ground, said Clinton Wallace, the center’s deputy director.

Later Friday, United Airlines, which operated the flight, offered a slightly less drastic account of what had occurred.

“Air Wisconsin Flight 3833 operating as United Express from Charlottesville, Va. to Washington Dulles International encountered turbulence because of high winds,” United said in a statement. “A few customers onboard the regional jet became ill as the aircraft was preparing to land. The aircraft landed safely and taxied to its gate. No customers required medical attention because of the turbulence.”

According to Air Wisconsin’s website, the aircraft was a Bombardier CRJ200 with a passenger capacity of 50 and a crew of three. It was not clear how many passengers were on the flight.

It came out of the sky: Frozen airplane poop – blue ice — raises questions in India town

Posted on January 24, 2018 by Douglas Powell

A rumble in the sky and a loud thud a few seconds later shook villagers in Gurugram’s Fazilpur Badli on Saturday, leaving them wondering what had happened.

Rajbir Yadav was in a wheat field when a “large rock” made its way to the ground, forming a one-foot crater.

Was it a missile, a bomb or a meteor?

A terrified, befuddled Yadav sprinted to the village head, another villager, Sukhbir Singh, said.

The news spread like wildfire and a few minutes later, a large number of the villagers had circled the frigid “rock”, which later turned out to be human excret – a human poop.

While the elders wracked their brains to make a good guess, the children brimming with curiosity declared it was a gift by the aliens.

“It is a white, holy stone gifted by the aliens,” a child exclaimed.

Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Pataudi, Vivek Kalia told PTI a few people approached the district administration, and a team comprising officials from the Meteorological department and the National Disaster Management Authority was formed under Kalia.

The team found the “celestial gift” the whole village was talking about the entire day was “blue ice”, a term used for frozen toilet waste leaking from aircraft, Kalia said.

Barf plane: Virgin flight passengers vomit after served parmesan cheese

Posted on December 26, 2016 by Douglas Powell

Parmesan cheese smells like barf.

Always has.

Passengers on a Virgin Australia flight on Christmas Day were served a complimentary snack on their journey from Perth to Adelaide.

Aside from coffee and tea, they were also offered bread rolls filled with parmesan cheese, which stunk up their entire plane for the duration of the five-hour long journey.

This caused some passengers to vomit in their seats, and others to race off the plane after landing to vomit on the tarmac.

I get it.

After the flight, a woman took to Facebook to share her experience and how Virgin Australia should improve.

‘I love cheese along with the best of us, however, when sitting in an enclosed space, with a low roof, over the length of 40ft, with not a window to open, and with seating capacity of over 100 passengers, parmesan cheese was probably not your brightest choice.’

A fan of cheese herself, the woman said the strong smell of parmesan became for some of the people sitting around her, including the woman beside her who was heaving into her sick bag for two hours.
‘I am fortunate enough not suffer such an affliction, but after hearing her wrenching and burping, mixed in with the lingering wafting smell of old socks took every strength of effort not to go out in sympathy with her.’

100 sick: French prisoners succumb to foodborne illness

Posted on November 22, 2016 by Douglas Powell

Some 100 detainees from the Dijon prison were probably the victims of food poisoning. Analyzes are under way to determine the cause of the problem. The health treatment center at the Dijon prison had to face an influx of patients on the evening of Nov. 12, 2016. All complained of stomach aches.

A dish of fish served with mayonnaise could be the cause of this poisoning which affected about 100 detainees out of approximately 260, indicates Thierry Cordelette, regional secretary of the trade union UFAP. Orders have been issued. Analyses will be carried out on the meals which have been recently served and which are prepared in the prisons’ kitchens by prisoners. The aim is to clarify whether this was a food-related problem or the cause is in the preparation process.

It came out of the sky: Human poop falls over India

Posted on October 28, 2016 by Douglas Powell

A former senior army man has moved the National Green Tribunal alleging dumping of human waste by aircraft over residential areas near the IGI airport in Delhi, which led the green panel to order an inspection of his South Delhi house.

Lt Gen (Retd) Satwant Singh Dahiya has sought criminal proceedings against commercial airlines and levy of hefty fines on them for endangering the health of residents, terming the act as violation of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.

Noting the submissions of the petitioner, the green panel directed Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) to depute a senior environmental engineer to inspect his house and check the existence of human excreta on the walls.

It also asked CPCB that if excreta was found, samples should be collected for analysis and the report placed before the tribunal.

A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar also issued notices to the Ministries of Environment and Forests and Civil Aviation and CPCB, seeking their replies within two weeks.

Plane toilets store human waste in special tanks. These are normally disposed of by ground crew once the plane lands, but aviation officials acknowledge that lavatory leaks can occur in the air at times. There have been instances, including in India, when people have been injured.

Airplane: 36 years later in reality

Posted on January 28, 2016 by Douglas Powell

Airplane was the funniest movie I saw as a teenager, with this girl (along with Life of Brian).

I didn’t like it the first time (because I was more interested in the girl beside me in the car, at a drive-in) but have watched it probably 40 times since and can recite the script.

Proving what true visionaries the writers were – everyone who ate fish got sick — an American Airlines plane travelling from London Heathrow to Los Angeles was forced to turn back just hours into the flight after multiple members of the crew and some passengers fell ill.

The Boeing 777 was just passing Iceland on Wednesday afternoon when it made an about turn and headed back to the capital after a number of people fell faint and one attendant collapsed in an aisle, according to several witness accounts.

The cause of the illness has not been confirmed by the airline.

Passenger Lee Gunn was onboard Flight AA109 and tweeted updates from the plane.

“About 2.5 hours into the flight just as we were passing Iceland we had a Tannoy announcement asking for any doctors, nurses or medical professionals on board to report to the boarding doors to assist with unwell passengers,” he told The Mirror.

“It was also reported that seven of the crew had fallen ill… along with ‘many’ passengers,” he added.

‘You can tell by the way I use my walk I’m a woman’s man, no time to talk’ Demographics suck

Posted on January 4, 2016 by Douglas Powell

I’ve never been one for survey-dictated demographics. Born at the end of the baby boom, too early for what ever came next, all I know is I had to suffer through disco in high school.

Despite some grammatical mistakes, I sorta got it right when talking about Chipotle.

NPR says the WastED salad has been available at Sweetgreen restaurants, making use of the restaurants scraps – broccoli leaves, carrot ribbons, roasted kale stems, romaine hearts, roasted cabbage cores, roasted broccoli stalks and roasted bread butts all mixed with arugula, Parmesan, spicy sunflower seeds and pesto vinaigrette.

I wanna barf.

Both consumers and food purveyors are focused on removing GMOs, artificial ingredients, preservatives, antibiotics and growth hormones from food. Even fast-food outlets are using more eggs from cage-free chickens and dumping ingredients that have been genetically modified.

Millenials – now more numerous than Baby Boomers – have a huge impact. The corporate food world is keenly interested in how and what this large group of consumers eats. And they do buy and eat differently than older generations. They order ingredients online, learn to cook from You Tube as well as cookbooks and websites. They care about the environment, ethical treatment of animals and community. They frequently use food delivery services rather than going to the supermarket, and order meal kits that deliver prepared ingredients.

Do they care about food safety?

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