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

Findings show that the proportion of febrile arrivals among self-reported fever arrivals was significantly higher than that of febrile arrivals among non-self-reported fever arrivals. This implies that self-reporting of fever through required health declaration forms can be useful to detect febrile arrivals. Nonetheless, two-thirds of the entire febrile arrivals did not reported fever. In addition, half of the febrile arrivals reported cough that is one of the most important predictors of influenza [11] . Taken together, the findings suggest that quarantine officers be concerned not only about self-reported fever but also about other symptoms such as cough for a detection of imported infection. Korea currently measures tympanic temperature for all cases with any symptoms along with self-reported fever. In so doing, it endeavors to detect febrile arrivals who do not self-report a fever. This study also finds no significant difference between thermal camera temperature and ear temperature. Therefore, an array of the procedures employed by quarantine stations in Korea-health declaration form, thermal camera scanning, and subsequently tympanic temperature measurement-could serve as useful complements to one another in detecting febrile arrivals as accurately as possible.