According to the report of the Houston Chronicle, seasonal flu might have been the cause of the disease among a few passengers who were aboard a Continental Airlines flight Monday from Hong Kong to Newark, New Jersey.
The flight crew observed that several passengers appeared sick in the course of the flight and informed US health authorities immediately. The plane was detained on the tarmac for about 2 hours after it landed in Newark. After precise analysis, health officials cleared the ill passengers to enter the United States.
The passengers’ symptoms were coherent with seasonal influenza, Curtis Allen, a spokesman for the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, told the Chronicle. Several passengers have already been ill once they boarded the aircraft in Hong Kong, however most of them became sick in the course of the flight, Allen explained.
The sick passengers evoked some worries due to the fact that the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) outbreak originated in Asia in 2002 and was spread, partly, by airline passengers. Thousands of people were infected by Sars and hundreds of them died.
