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

Our measures include dichotomous self-reported fever, thermal camera temperature, and tympanic temperature, which were collected as followings. Arrivals from quarantinable countries filled out health declaration forms distributed by flight attendants, and submitted the completed forms to quarantine officers when passing by infrared thermal cameras (Thermovision A20M; FLIR, Wilsonville, OR, USA; Thermo Tracer TH7800, ThermoGraphy R300; NEC, Tokyo, Japan). The quarantine officers set the thermal cameras for 36°C, and checked the maximum temperature on the camera screens at ringed alarms when passengers walked by the infrared thermal cameras. Symptomatic arrivals were classified as passengers whose health declaration forms self-reported one or more the symptoms or those who were identified by the thermal camera scanning to have a fever above 36°C. There was no case that was an asymptomatic arrival but detected by the thermal camera scanning. Quarantine officers then measures symptomatic arrivals' tympanic temperature (ThermoScan IRT-3020, ThermoScan IRT-4020: Braun, Kronberg, Germany) and passengers with a fever above 37.8°C were identified as febrile arrivals. Once identified, febrile arrivals were interviewed by quarantine officers or a physician. During the interview, the mean of right and left ear temperatures and thermal camera temperature were measured again. Temperatures reported in this research for febrile arrivals represent the first and second measurements of ear temperatures and the second measurement of thermal camera temperature. Two quarantine officers retrieved information from the returned health declaration forms, including arrival date, nationality, age, gender, countries of stay during the past 10 days before arrival, and health-related symptoms during the past 10 days before arrival (such as runny or stuffy nose, sore throat, cough, fever, diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal pain, difficulty breathing, and shortness of breath). Tympanic temperatures were retrieved from records for the 608 arrivals detected by health declaration forms and the thermal camera scanning. In addition, second tympanic temperatures and re-measured thermal camera temperatures were retrieved from records for the six febrile arrivals who had a temperature above 37.8°C based on their initial ear temperatures.