Airline Crew

Journal Article Review

“Airline Crew’s Risk for Malaria on Layovers in Urban Sub-Saharan Africa: Risk Assessment and Appropriate Prevention Policy”

By Neville J. Byrne and Ron H. Behrens

About the Article

Health, the most important factor for a person, is the precondition of everything. As a result, we should put it at the first place of our concerns, and in front of dangers or diseases, it is our obligatory responsibility to wipe out the dangers and diseases for ourselves as well as for others.

The journal article by Neville J. Byrne and Ron H. Behrens, “Airline Crew’s Risk for Malaria on Layovers in Urban Sub-Saharan Africa: Risk Assessment and Appropriate Prevention Policy” focuses its topic on the discussion of malaria, which is very likely to be infected by airline crew when they stay in urban Sub-Saharan Africa on their layovers. The whole article is composed of four parts: background of the research, methods to carry out the research, results and conclusions.

The research purpose of this article is to quantify the annual risk of falciparum malaria among non-immune, UK-based airline crew, and it also tries to make an assessment of the risk that crew may be infected by the disease during their short layovers in sub-Saharan African cities.

The main research method applied in this article is to find out the relationship between the number of nights that crew are exposed in malaria-endemic regions and the reported cases of falciparum malaria, which are an important element to evaluate the annual disease incidence. Transmission risk estimates are calculated for each layover, that is, where crew is accommodated over night, for one or more nights, in designated city hotels. When the crew is on their layovers, they are supplied with air-conditioning of ground transport, hotels and airports. The details of activities which may result in being infected with malaria and the details of adherence to anti-mosquito measures among the crew are...