ANCHORAGE (AP) -- A quarantine station at Anchorage's international airport will open in July to screen travelers for infectious diseases.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Anchorage was chosen because of the large number of international flights landing at the airport - about 30 passenger and 500 cargo flights a week.
Most quarantine stations nationwide are in airports. Anchorage's airport used to house a station that closed about two decades ago, said Linda Close, marketing director for Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport. The new staff likely will take over a small office in the airport's customs area, but that's not definite yet, she said.
Anchorage's new facility will boost the CDC's presence on the West Coast, said Ram Koppaka, acting chief of the CDC's Quarantine and Border Health Services branch. Stations exist or will open in Honolulu, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego, he said.
Eight CDC quarantine stations currently operate nationwide, and federal money will increase that to 18 before the end of September. The goal is 25 sites by 2006, said Marty Remis, deputy branch chief with the CDC's Quarantine and Border Health Services branch.
Federal law requires airlines to report passengers who become ill or die on an international flight, Remis said.
The Atlanta-based CDC has authority to prevent travelers from bringing and spreading infectious diseases in the United States. Besides a pandemic or worldwide flu and SARS, the agency can quarantine for cholera, diphtheria, infectious tuberculosis, plague, smallpox, yellow fever and viral hemorrhagic fevers.
Remis said the CDC has hired one of two staff members for Anchorage. Shahrokh Roohi, a registered nurse with a master's degree in public health, will be the site's lead adviser.
Roohi has worked as an adviser in the CDC's Coordinating Office for Terrorism Preparedness and Emergency Response. The agency is still interviewing for a medical doctor, Remis said.
When quarantine issues came up in the past, health officials consulted with officials in Seattle, the next-closest site. In the SARS outbreak in 2003, the CDC staff at Anchorage's Arctic Investigations Program stepped in to help monitor passengers and crew as well as share information about the respiratory syndrome.
Roohi said his staff will collaborate day to day with other local public health officials, work on an emergency response plan for ports of entry and field questions on communicable diseases. But the main role of a quarantine station is to respond to travelers' infectious diseases.
