Sixteen caught SARS while flying with infected passengers

GENEVA — At least 16 people have caught SARS by flying on planes with people carrying the disease, World Health Organization officials said yesterday.

WHO has documented 35 flights on which people suffering from severe acute respiratory syndrome were passengers, officials said. Transmission appears to have occurred on four of the flights.

At least nine passengers — and possibly more than twice that number — were infected on one March 16 flight, Air China Flight 112 from Hong Kong to Beijing.

The 16 confirmed airplane infections are believed to have occurred among passengers sitting very close or those on board who had close contact with a sick passenger.

"Proximity is a huge part of this picture," said Michael Ryan, director of WHO's disease-alert network. "The vast majority have been within two rows in front or two rows behind. Not sharing toilets, not walking up and down the aisle, not sitting in the waiting area — none of those issues seem to be associated."

He said all of the transmissions appeared to have originated from patients who were already showing symptoms, such as sweating and coughing.

"This is not some Typhoid Mary story of someone gets on a plane and all of a sudden everyone by the end of the flight has got SARS," Ryan said. "This is very, very low level of transmission from highly symptomatic patients."

The airplane transmissions were reported on the opening day of the World Health Assembly, an annual meeting of WHO's 192 member states. In addition to SARS, the assembly is discussing a landmark international tobacco treaty and expansion of WHO's powers to identify and fight international health threats.

At least 7,864 SARS cases and 643 deaths have occurred worldwide since the disease emerged in southern China in November and began spreading internationally at the end of February.

Klaus Stohr, a WHO virologist, said new tests by Chinese researchers found that the coronavirus that causes SARS could survive for five days in saliva. The finding supports earlier indications that the virus can survive on common surfaces at room temperature for hours or even days. But if the virus is spread that way, it must be occurring very rarely or the disease would likely still be spreading in many places, experts said.

Material from The Associated Press is included in this report.