Experts say the risk of transmitting the corona virus during a long flight is real, and the warning came after a new study found that one passenger infected 15 other people on board with code 19.
A 27-year-old businesswoman flew from London to Vietnam on March 1, the investigation said.
The anonymous woman had a sore throat and cough before boarding the 10-hour flight, and was diagnosed with code 19 a few days later.
The study, by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), was published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.
The investigation found that the woman had infected 14 other passengers and a crew member with code 19.
Of those infected with the virus, 12 were sitting around the infected woman in business class and two in economy class.
The study found that the virus was transmitted to passengers, possibly through airborne particles or particles from the mouth, especially in people in business class.
According to research, the risk of transmitting the corona virus during long-haul flights is real, but can be transmitted from one person to another in large numbers, even in business class where people’s seats are far apart.
However, the researchers also pointed out that the incident on the flight to Vietnam occurred before the widespread use of face masks.
Prior to the study, the CDC had revealed that about 11,000 passenger flights in the United States were infected with code 19.
The U.S. Medical Institute said thousands of passengers could be at risk while traveling on the plane.
However, the CDC said it was difficult to say how many people became infected with the virus during flights or if they had already.
A spokesman for the CDC’s Global Migration Division said: “We can’t say for sure whether the number of people in the cabin of the plane became infected or whether air travel increased the chances of the virus spreading.”
The spokesman said the absence or non-reporting of cases did not mean that it was not possible to be infected with the Korna virus during air travel.