All passengers on a plane that is carrying someone infected with measles are at risk of contracting the disease, not just those sitting closest to the carrier, new research shows.
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The study on the transmission of measles on aeroplanes has raised new questions about whether health authorities should bother continuing to attempt to contact by telephone those seated close to a passenger who later discovered he or she had measles.
In the future, health authorities could use the media, email and mobile phone text messages to try to alert everyone who was on a plane that they may have been exposed to measles.
Researchers looked at 45 cases of people infected with measles who travelled on planes, as part of a study to be presented on Wednesday at an Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases conference, in Canberra.
The 45 people in the study appeared to have infected 22 fellow passengers, most of whom had been seated further away than the two-row zone closest to the original case that authorities usually worry about.
Study co-author Gary Dowse, of the Department of Health in Western Australia, said public health officials often struggled to contact passengers at risk of exposure in time for them to be given preventive medication if they were not already immune to measles.
People who contract measles generally do not display symptoms for 10 to 14 days.
