Detection of imported COVID-19 cases worldwide: early assessment of airport entry screening, 24 January until 17 February 2020

Abstract The purpose of this study was to provide an overview of entry screening measures applied at airports in response to the COVID-19 epidemic worldwide. Between 24 January and 17 February 2020, 5.2% (95% CI 3.1–8.5) of the 271 total imported COVID-19 cases worldwide (excluding imported cases ar...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Tropical Medicine and Health
Main Authors: Varvara A. Mouchtouri, Zacharoula Bogogiannidou, Martin Dirksen-Fischer, Sotirios Tsiodras, Christos Hadjichristodoulou
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: BMC 2020
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Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1186/s41182-020-00260-5
https://doaj.org/article/c940a8fd2afa4732bdfbab7895255742
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Summary:Abstract The purpose of this study was to provide an overview of entry screening measures applied at airports in response to the COVID-19 epidemic worldwide. Between 24 January and 17 February 2020, 5.2% (95% CI 3.1–8.5) of the 271 total imported COVID-19 cases worldwide (excluding imported cases arriving in China, Macao, and Hong Kong) with known detection location were captured through airport entry screening. The majority of imported COVID-19 cases (210) were identified by the health care system (77.5%). Efforts should focus on health care system preparedness for early case detection, since according to our and previous studies health care facilities are the actual point of entry of imported cases.