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CDC meets plane at JFK after passengers report feeling ill.

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[van id=”health/2018/09/05/sick-plane-passengers-jfk-airport-dubai-vpx.cnn”]

By Eliott C. McLaughlin
CNN
Federal health officials met a plane landing Wednesday at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York after passengers reported feeling ill, according to sources.
Emirates Flight 203, which originated in Dubai, was carrying more than 500 passengers and landed around 9:06 a.m. ET, a source with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said.
All passengers were screened, the airline said, and three passengers and seven crew members were transported to a hospital for treatment and evaluation. Nine others underwent medical screening at the airport and were cleared to leave, it said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 11 people went to the hospital.
A CDC official familiar with the situation said authorities looking into the cause of the illnesses are considering respiratory illnesses like influenza — and out of an abundance of caution, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS, a viral respiratory disease first identified in 2012.
One passenger told CNN from the plane that people were showing signs of illness while they were at the airport in Dubai.
“I asked the (flight attendant) for a mask before we even took off, but there was none available,” Erin Sykes said. “It was so obvious that a large number of people were ill well before takeoff.”
The nonstop flight was a smooth one, Sykes said, so she didn’t believe the ailments were related to turbulence or air sickness.
“People were coughing the whole time. Now some people have fevers over 100,” she said. “They should never had been allowed to board.”
The crew didn’t say anything about passengers being sick until about 30 minutes before the aircraft landed, she said during a later interview inside the airport.
“The captain did make an announcement and said, ‘We’re not going to be able to deplane right away because there’s been a couple people sick,’ but that was all the information we got,” Sykes said.
While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Port Authority source said as many as 100 passengers reported feeling sick, the airline said only about 10 passengers had “taken ill.”
“As a precaution, they were immediately checked by local health authorities and those needing medical attention will be attended to,” Emirates said in a statement shortly after the plane landed.
Passenger Larry Coben’s tweets documented ambulances converging on the tarmac, CDC forms that passengers were asked to complete, passengers disembarking and having their temperatures taken, and passengers then taking a bus to the terminal.
“Happy to report that I am through customs and on my way home,” Coben tweeted just after 11 a.m. ET.
Passenger Srinivasa Rao said that after filling out the forms, officials told them they would “track” the passengers to make sure they didn’t come down with any ailments in the next three weeks. While he was pleased with the response, he said he felt more should have been done to ensure passengers were healthy before boarding the flight.
“I’m very happy that they have taken such a great care,” he said. “I’m really surprised and I’m happy about it, but the most important point is they should have checked these people before they got onto the flight.”
The plane was taken to a “hard standing area,” where paramedics and officials from the CDC were responding to the scene, the Port Authority source said.
A statement from Jamaica Hospital Medical Center said the sick passengers suffered from coughing, headache, sore throat and fever.
“Passengers who are not ill will be allowed to continue with their travel plans, and if necessary will be followed up with by health officials,” the agency said.