Fever Screening and Detection of Febrile Arrivals at an International Airport in Korea: Association among Self-reported Fever, Infrared Thermal Camera Scanning, and Tympanic Temperature

Cho, Kyung Sook; Yoon, Jangho

Data were retrieved from health declaration forms, as well as from records of in-person interviews for febrile arrivals at an international airport of a National Quarantine Station in Korea. Figure 1 depicts the process used to select study participants from the entire arrivals. The total of 584,323 arrivals passed through the airport from January 1 to December 31 in 2012. Among those, 355,887 arrivals (61% of the total arrivals) came from quarantinable countries designated by the Korean Minister of Health and Welfare. Passengers from the quarantinable countries must return completed health declaration forms at any international airports, seaports, and border lines at the time of entry into Korea. The final study sample includes 608 subjects (313 females and 294 males) aged 1 to 86 who self-reported at least one symptom of runny nose, stuffy nose, sore throat, cough, and fever.