Spreading More Than Cheer: Holiday Fliers 100 Times More Likely to Catch Germs on a Plane Seth Augenstein - NJ.com
go to original December 22, 2014

Medical researchers say holiday travelers are 100 times more likely to catch a cold from their fellow passengers than they would in a crowded space on the ground. (CWT Savvy Traveler)

This holiday season, millions will pass through international airports around the world. But they will be bringing more than holiday cheer with them, according to health researchers.

A study published earlier this year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that a patient infected six fellow passengers with Swine flu during an international flight from Mexico to the United Kingdom in 2009. Other research shows passengers are 100 times more likely to catch a cold on a flight than they are in crowded place on the ground.

According to the experts, it’s in the air.

Only two of the six flu cases aboard the 2009 flight were passengers sitting within two rows of the first patient, the researchers found in their investigation of the flu's spread. The four other patients were spread out in the plane, and got sick a few days later, they said.

“Although it is possible that infection could have occurred in Mexico at any time before embarkation, this timeline is also within the range for in-flight transmission and consistent with the known epidemiology of (Swine flu),” wrote the CDC researchers.

Contrary to popular belief, it’s not the recirculated air on a plane carrying more germs – it’s how dry that air is, according to an earlier study of colds transmitted during flights. Essentially, that dry air prevents the body from moving mucus to properly dispose of germs, as it does at normal humidity, according to the research.

“Analysis at this level of exposure clearly confirms that the colds transmission risk during travel as an aircraft passenger is very high,” wrote the researchers in the Journal of Environmental Health Research, in a 2004 study. “It is the low relative humidity in aircraft cabins that increases susceptibility to colds rather than a higher viral load in the air.”

Read the rest at NJ.com

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