Feds developing guidelines for potential SARS-infected airplanes SAN FRANCISCO (AP) =97 Federal officials are developing guidelines to help= =20 avoid the same type of confusion that greeted a flight from Tokyo to San=20 Jose that carried five people with minor coughs =97 not, as the crew feared,= =20 the mystery illness that has killed dozens in Asia. Officials with the=20 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday they are working= =20 with airline and cruise ship associations to standardize a response should= =20 a passenger show potential symptoms of the new disease. Also Wednesday, a=20 group representing 50,000 flight attendants asked the Federal Aviation=20 Administration to compel airlines to provide them with protective gloves=20 and masks on flights through high-risk areas such as Hong Kong. Worldwide,= =20 at least 78 people have died and more than 2,200 are believed to be sick=20 with severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, the World Health=20 Organization said. Little is known about the still-spreading illness and=20 health officials are trying to stem any potential panic. "We want to contain overreaction as much as we want to enhance rapid=20 response," said Martin Cetron, deputy director of the CDC's quarantine=20 division. Public health officials in San Jose appealed for detailed federal= =20 guidance on the best ways to respond =97 both on board and on the ground =97= =20 after scrambling Tuesday to respond to the American Airlines flight whose=20 captain reported that five passengers might have SARS symptoms. Even before= =20 doctors cleared the passengers, their frustration was evident. While they=20 don't want to ignore possible cases, they also don't want potential=20 SARS-carrying planes to generate the kind of fear that led people with=20 doughnut powder on their pants to worry they had been exposed to anthrax in= =20 the fall of 2001. "If every flight from Asia has someone coughing on it and= =20 has to go through the same procedure, I just don't see how that's=20 feasible," said Dr. Karen Smith, the Santa Clara County health officer who= =20 boarded the plane. In San Jose, six ambulances lined up on the tarmac =97=20 about a third of those available in the county, according to San Jose fire= =20 department officials. Cetron said that nearly a dozen planes have been evaluated since March 16.= =20 Usually the CDC has officials at eight international ports of entry =97 now= =20 it's staffing 23 ports. While the CDC has already distributed some=20 guidelines through airline industry groups, there isn't yet one set of=20 widely distributed best practices. That is the goal of the CDC's=20 consultations with groups such as the Air Transport Association, which=20 represents major U.S. airlines. Complete guidelines could be available in=20 days, he said. Still, the confines of a plane make the ideal precautions a= =20 challenge: isolating a passenger is tough, and the onboard medical kit=20 might not include surgical masks to put on those showing potential=20 symptoms. The Association of Flight Attendants asked the FAA for an=20 emergency order to require airlines to provide the workers with protective= =20 equipment. An FAA spokesman said the agency would consider the request.=20 Another simple precaution =97 seeing if the passenger's temperature is above= =20 100.4 degrees, one of three tests for SARS =97 has met with some resistance.= =20 "We haven't gotten there," Cetron said. "We were told that we had to be=20 mindful of the fact that flight attendants are not health care= professionals." Other solutions are doable, such as asking pilots to alert officials on the= =20 ground as soon as possible so doctors can prescribe a response=20 proportionate to the potential threat. American Airlines began posting=20 guidance from the World Health Organization =97 including assiduous=20 handwashing and an early call to the airline's on-duty doctor =97 on its=20 internal Web and e-mail services in mid March, spokeswoman Andrea Rader=20 said. "We're pretty much adhering to whatever the CDC tells us to do,"=20 Rader said. But such responses have not been uniform. Northwest Airlines=20 said it wasn't until Monday that it updated its guidelines to reflect CDC=20 recommendations. *************************************************** The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site/TnTisland.com Roj (Roger James) escape email mailto:ejames@xxxxxxxxx Trinbago site: www.tntisland.com Carib Brass Ctn site www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ Steel Expressions www.mts.net/~ejames/se/ Site of the Week:http://www.ttsailing.org/ TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************