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Bacteria in aircraft a low risk to travelers
Science Daily released an interesting article, based on research conducted at University of Massachusetts Amherst, that shows the low risk of air travel and bacterial illness.
Bacteria that was present in aircraft -- with exotic names like Psuedomonas, Bacillus and Staphylococcus -- are commonly found on healthy skin and not generally causative organisms of disease.
The research team sampled the air from twelve aircraft (Boeing 767) cabins with flight times of 4.5 to 6.5 hours. The samples were taken from the coach section of the plane at 6 different intervals, including boarding, climb, cruise and deplaning. As expected, the highest concentrations of bacteria was found during boarding and deplaning. When the passengers move through the plane, their activity stirs up dust and skin bacteria, releasing it into the cabin air. During the flight, the bacteria levels decreased, likely due to a decrease in activity in the cabin.
Filed under: Travel Health
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 3)
E Neister May 10th 2008 7:41PM
This is a misleading test since it only tested the air. Most of the staph, MRSA, C-diff and intenstinal viruses are transmitted by surface contact. The air filters in the plane catch most of the airborne bacteria, but do not reduce the high concentrations of virus and bacteria on places where people who are sick touch . The airlines need to do a better job of reducing infection transmission between flights.
If they were using Sterilray between flights to disinfect each drop down table, the arm rests and the head rests, infection of gastrointestinal viruses would drop dramatically. This would take only about 15 minutes to disinfect the entire plane. The technology is here today and the time to use it is now. Don't you think people would prefer to fly on an airlines that disinfected their planes between flights or at the very least every night?
To check out sterilray, go to Sterilray.com.