reducing infection risk
 

Just got over an upper respiratory illness contracted after a 11 hr flight (coach, if that makes any difference?), but now my wife has it.

I am healthy but get such illnesses about one international flight in five.

Any ideas to reduce the risk? already wash hands frequently. Fly business? A doctor friend says wearing a face mask makes no difference unless it is HEPA compliant. A holistic friend says you can take immunostimulants.

found this, but of little value

https://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/air/m...abin-crew.html

A few ideas...

- Clean up any contact areas (armrests, tray table, etc...) with disinfectant wipes before settling down
- Pick a window seat and don't move around the aircraft too much. Go to the loo before getting on the flight. Picking one at the back of the plane might mean you're more likely to have a free seat next to you too.
- Have some more disinfectant wipes to wash your hands before eating.
- Don't touch your face too much
- HEPA face masks exist but I would probably rather be sick than wearing a proper efficient mask for 11 hours.
- Flying business would reduce the risk as you will be in contact with fewer people but ultimately this is a tradeoff you have to make.

You can't do anything about an airborne virus unless you want to wear a mask and even then it's iffy. Everything Big Ben suggested, take disinfected wipes and clean everything. Anything you would touch from seat belt, trays, armrest... Do not touch your face at all, don't rub your eyes, lips. I work in L.E. and we take classes once a year to make sure we are protecting ourselves from contagious diseases. When my wife and I fly we always have wipes. Are we Howard Hughes batsh!t crazy about germs? No but we do clean everything we touch. MRSA is out there. The today show had a segment about how dirty flying is. I'll see if I can find it.

Moderators please remove if this is not allowed. I'm posting this so that the OP can understand certain areas where infection may occur. I've never been sick because of a flight I took but everyone's immune system if different.
https://www.today.com/health/harmful...g-sick-t138513

Use a saline nasal spray - having dehydrated air passages will decrease their ability to deal with infectious microbes.

I agree with this. I'm a fan of the NeilMed sinus rinse kit. It sounds icky to send water up your nose but once I got past the thought of it, I found it really easy to do. I have allergies, so use it daily. My husband does not, so he uses it 2x/week and especially the day of and the day after flying. A doctor I know says that surfers are less inclined to nasal infections because of the sea salt water they have running thru their nasal passages. This is the same.

They do, or at least Clorox wipes do:
http://apex-reps.com/assets/site/uploads/cIoZUYBLIG.pdf

There's a few they don't kill but everything I'd be worried about on a plane is covered. Well, except for Hep A but I'm vaccinated against that one

Firstly, get your shots. Get vaccinated annually, especially against flu. But if you travel internationally, especially to the tropics and to poorer countries with sanitation issues, get yellow fever, dengue, and malaria vaccinations as well. Arm yourself with Cipro. You may not have to take it, but it's good to have.

As to actually flying...use hand sanitizer frequently, especially after trips to the lav. Bring disinfectant wipes and wipe down the armrests, tray table, and vent ring. And don't forget the IFE controls as well. Do it at the start of the flight.

Malaria vaccinations? :confused:

Is there such a thing now?

Not really a vaccination, but you can prevent it with malaria prep treatments. Pills or shots. Unlike other shots though it's only good while you are exposed and does not stay with you.

interesting re nasal !
related - drinking water
and regular nutrition

clearly popular use of terms varies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaria_prophylaxis

medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/generalinfectiousdisease/74177

Typically only the commercial products, not the consumer products. Activated Hydrogen Peroxide products are da bomb, but they can be hard to find and typical retailers won't carry these commercial products.

Keep in mind you may or may not have contracted the illness on the flights, even if you started feeling sick during or shortly afterward. Depending on what has caused the respiratory infection, the average incubation period can be as long as several days following exposure.

Generally I find practicing good hygiene, staying hydrated, and getting adequate rest (as much as possible) throughout the trip is best, rather than focusing just on the flights. We do use appropriate wipes to clean off certain surfaces on the plane, hotel, etc. though that's not a panacea. As someone with chronic sinus issues, non-medicated saline rinses as mentioned above are an excellent thing to use regularly, not just to guard against infection but also to keep dust and allergens flushed out, too. Can't hurt to get flu and other vaccines as appropriate, too.

Finally there's always an element of luck involved no matter what...or bad luck, as the case may be.

Thanks. I've taken malaria pills a few times but wasn't aware of the shots. I'd be concerned about side effects because I don't react well to the pills. I stopped taking them on a couple of trips having concluded that even though I was 100 kilometers inside the CDC's malarial zone the risk was low because I was working in a small town during the dry season and was well supplied with DEET.

Some people find the shots better than the pills, and other find the shots way to strong. For me, the pills made me nauseaous and therefore miserable. So I had the shot, no issues. But I know somone who had the shot and felt terribly ill, so she took the pills. Either way, still better than malaria...which you keep your whole life with flare ups every few years.

Hand sanitizer (dispensers are usually located nearby) before and after handling the serving utensils in the airport lounge. Always. At least on the hand that handled the handle.

I too wipe down the armrests, tray table, seatbelt buckles and any buttons (including seatback monitors), as do the rest of my family.
But I hardly ever see anyone else do this. Worse, sometimes I get the stares (sneers?) when doing this.

Just keep your wet wipes to yourself. I once had a woman who upon taking her seat beside me start maniacally wiping down everything around her like some sort of charwoman on meth. I agreed to her request to raise my arm so she could clean our shared armrest but drew the line when she demanded to wipe down MY tray table and screen. I resisted the temptation to cough in her general direction during the flight.

This. I've gotten sick less often in general due to this, not just during/after trips. Getting the flu shot every year helps, too.

That's kind of crazy for this woman to try to wipe down your tray/screen.
Of course I don't do that, and I try to do the wipe thing quickly and discreetly. Even then, I sometimes have people give me weird looks. I really hate that. Do I seem that strange and OCD to be wiping down things that are known to be filled with germs? I wish more people did the wipe-down so I don't stand out, but apparently most Americans don't think about these things.

I take immuno suppression medications, thus I am more susceptible to get something.
I use disinfectant wipes and wipe the armrest, table, handles, screen, etc ...
I wash my hands and disinfect them before eating, do the same after going to the toilet.
I wear a mask on flights longer than 3 hours, or if I have a sick looking neighbor on shorter ones. I use one from Vogmask
I fly business if possible, but it is always a compromise.
Touching wood, I never got really sick after a flight (caught some short lived fever or dry cough a few times though).

I'm a bit a of a germaphobe but I gave up on worrying about all of this when traveling. I've slowed down and only average 60-70 flights/year. Past years I was averaging 140 flights/year, and more time in hotels that I can even recall. What amazed me is that during that time I never got sick, and can only assume my immune system was working well.

Not American, but I do think about those things.......I just don't worry about those things. That's what a healthy immune system is supposed to handle, so the things I worry about are related to keeping my body working normally (like not getting dehydrated, getting enough sleep, eating well, etc). Those microbes on those few surfaces are a drop in the ocean compared to all the microbes you're exposed to all day every day (any day), so that's why I don't worry about it. I wouldn't say you seem strange for wiping down those things, but I do think you seem like you don't understand the situation very well if you think that will help.

this has changed my life.

Or they have thought about it and don't think it matters? I accept there are germs everywhere but I've never thought the risk of getting infections from them high enough to worry especially about flights. I just follow the same precautions everywhere, on a plane or not, which are to wash my hands frequently and definitely before eating (and of course wipes may help to clean your own hands when you can't get to a washroom), and avoiding touching my face / eyes / mouth as I believe those are significant vectors for infection. Maybe that works or maybe it's luck, but I don't get ill much and certainly haven't seen any illness correlated with flying. I'd be more worried about someone coughing or sneezing next to me during the flight than the tray table and armrests - and unfortunately one can't wipe down and sanitize one's fellow passengers.

The perception of the risk of infections from flying seems mostly based on anecdotal evidence. I'd love to see any studies done on the topic.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/...2.2005.02651.x

https://www.sciencedaily.com/release...0520100420.htm

https://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.c...879-018-3150-5

It's emotional vs. intellectual. Germs worry you which is perfectly valid because they can make you sick or even kill you. The other position is we are constantly surrounded by so many of them that wiping down an airline armrest is a futile exercise that isn't going to make that much of a difference in the grand scheme of things.

Thank you for the pointers to the studies. They're interesting, and they confirm that various surfaces in airports / airplanes have nasty germs of different kinds. I accept that. What I haven't seen more about (beyond anecdotal accounts) is whether any of it matters. Surely there are similar concentrations of germs in coffee shops, subways and trains, conference rooms in busy office buildings, elevators, cafeterias, etc. etc. The question relevant for the context of flying is, is the risk posed by germs in airplanes significantly higher than the risk from similar exposure in our normal workday situations. If yes, maybe it's worth taking additional precautions to wipe down every surface, wear masks, etc. Otherwise, you have to ask, if you can live without wiping down door handles and elevator buttons and stairway handrails at every opportunity, why can't you deal with the similar risk in an airplane without wiping surfaces down. At least, that's the way I think about this - it's relative risk, not about absolute contamination levels. I also accept that people have very different needs and personal situations and for some it may be imperative to be sure that the surfaces around them are wiped down. But on the other hand maybe my comments help explain why some of us don't bother to wipe down everything, or indeed, anything.

We travel internationally quite a lot most years and our personal physician has us get flu shots twice a year.

I am pretty anal about hand washing, DH is pretty good about it.

We also do the wipe down of all of the hard surfaces at/around seat. What I have seen as the most contaminated area is the fabric pouch on the seat in front of you. I never put anything in there, do not want to touch it.

I'm glad no one has suggested taking useless "supplements" like Airborne. I use hand sanitizers and try not to touch my face/nose/eyes. Wash hands/shower and change when I get home/hotel. Also, being up to date on vaccines is very important, flu for everyone and pneumovax if you're over 65.

Just want to add a couple of comments:

1. Getting symptoms of a respiratory tract infection at the end of, or shortly after, a long-haul flight, the risk is considerably larger your fellow traveller in the elevator en route to hotel check-out, hours before the flight, who coughed/sneezed, is the source. But the careful selection of pax travelling in your cabin of choice ;) having enough common sense to cancel their flights, or wear appropriate masks to protect you from sharing their infection, is of utmost importance.

2. Even though I often swipe my tray table and armrest, my main reason for that is not disease protection, but mainly because they are areas which I touch with my hands, where items/drinks etc, later ingested, might catch dirt I'd rather avoid. Although, both bacteriae and viruses tend to be more common in dirty places.

3. Although not really feeling the high risk of getting viral gastroenteritis when travelling, being short of 20 years since my last 'protuberance', it's good to have some statistical comparisons. For a person with intact immune system to get a pneumococcal pneumonia, you need to be infested with 250K pneumococcal bacteriae. Like being sneezed at right in your face. A person with viral gastroenteritis, who may have puked 30 min ago, who sneezes/coughs, sprays out micro droplets, that in a room with circulating air can be traced for 30+ minutes. Every single droplet contains 1.5+ M virus particles. How many is needed to get the infection? Just 15-20 ! Have that in mind when standing on the subway or in front of the check-in counter and someone behind you is sneezing. :eek:

Is that actually the number to overcome an immune system (i.e. actually cause a disease), or just local infection that it dealt with by the immune system.

Dirty cabin
 

Is it bad that I would've expected much worse? :D

Annual flu shot, hand sanitizer after using the lavatory, nasal saline spray and eating local yogurt at my destination. This has kept me going all around the world. ^