SARS Risk, or not.

Folks,

Here are the hard facts...

WHO medical experts announced
they have determined a total of 16 people became infected
with SARS on
airplanes, all early in the outbreak before airlines adopted
tough screening
measures.

"There were 35 flights on which SARS-infected people who were
symptomatic with disease traveled," said Dr. David Heymann,
WHO's chief
of communicable diseases. "We know, however, that on only
four of those
planes was there actually passage of the disease. We believe
that 16 people
on four different airplanes got infected."

Of those, 14 were passengers sitting within four seats of
the SARS patient
and two were flight attendants, said Mike Ryan, WHO's
coordinator of the
global effort to prevent the spread of severe acute
respiratory syndrome.

"Proximity is a huge part of this picture. The vast majority
have been within
two rows in front or two rows behind. Not sharing toilets,
not walking up and
down the aisle, not sitting in the waiting area _ none of
those issues seem to
be associated," Ryan said at a news conference on the
sidelines of the WHO
session.

All 16 cases occurred before March 23, four days before the
U.N. health
agency recommended that airlines screen passengers for signs
of SARS and
advised that suspected cases not be allowed to travel. SARS
is not
contagious unless symptoms are showing, experts say.

"The phenomenon of airline transmission of SARS is
historical now, we
believe," Ryan said. "Of course, there is always a risk if a
SARS patient gets
on a plane, but the idea is to prevent them from getting on
the plane in the
first place and the risk, we believe, has been reduced now
to infinitesimally
low levels because of screening and surveillance."

"We're not seeing anyone with infection getting on flights
at the moment,"
Ryan said.

In another effort to boost travel, China is reducing landing
fees by 20
percent, the International Air Transport Association said
Monday, adding
that several other countries have already done the same.

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