Public health officials have begun screening passengers arriving at SFO from Wuhan, China, for a mysterious new respiratory virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The pneumonia-like virus was discovered in Wuhan, the most populous city in central China, and has been confirmed in more than 200 people, according to Chinese health authorities. Three people have died from the virus, which has spread to Beijing and Shenzhen.
The CDC has deployed more than 100 staffers to check passengers arriving from Wuhan to San Francisco International Airport, New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and Los Angeles International Airport. They are the first health screenings of airline passengers in the U.S. since the 2014 Ebola outbreak.
CDC spokesman Scott Pauley declined Sunday to say whether any passengers at SFO or any other airport had shown symptoms or been diagnosed with the virus.
“We know it’s crucial to be proactive and prepared,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said in a press call Friday, noting that health officials have learned much from dealing with outbreaks of SARS and MERS.
However, she added, the new virus so far appears less dangerous. “We believe the current risk from this virus to the general public is low,” she said. “For a family sitting around the dinner table tonight, this is not something that they generally need to worry about.”
Those three airports receive the vast majority of travelers to the U.S. from Wuhan, the CDC said. SFO and JFK are the only U.S. airports with direct flights from Wuhan. LAX has connecting flights from there.
SFO has three nonstop China Southern Airlines flights a week from Wuhan arriving on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, each averaging about 150 passengers over the course of a year, said Cathy Morrison, airport duty manager. In addition, about 10 to 25 passengers on connecting flights from Wuhan each day would be subject to the screening, she said.
The number of passengers this month could be higher, as the Chinese Lunar New Year makes January a peak travel season for visitors from China to the U.S., the CDC said.
The CDC said arriving passengers are escorted to a separate area, where they complete questionnaires asking about symptoms such as coughs, fever or difficulty breathing, as well as whether they visited meat or seafood markets in Wuhan. Their temperatures are checked with thermal scanners. SFO said the screenings take place in the customs facility.
Those who visited Wuhan but do not have symptoms are given information about what to do if symptoms later develop. Those who do have symptoms are further evaluated by a public health officer.
Travelers who appear infected will be transferred to local hospitals, where they will be isolated, diagnosed and treated, the CDC said. The CDC is not identifying any designated treatment hospitals.
The only cases outside of China so far, two in Thailand and one in Japan, were found in people who had recently flown from Wuhan.
“Considering global travel patterns, additional cases in other countries are likely,” the World Health Organization said in a news release.
The new coronavirus, named after the crown-like spikes visible on its surface under electron microscopy, belongs to a large family of viruses that infect both animals and people, causing symptoms ranging from the common cold to serious diseases like SARS and MERS.
Most of the infected people had worked or visited a Wuhan market selling live fish, animals and birds, “suggesting animal-to-person spread,” the CDC said in a news release. The market has been shut down and disinfected. Some infected patients, however, “reportedly have not had exposure to animal markets, suggesting that some limited person-to-person spread is occurring,” it wrote.
Carolyn Said is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @csaid
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