Page 5 - Pandemic: How Climate, the Environment, and Superbugs Increase the Risk

The Beijing Capital International Airport is the world’s second-busiest airport, handling
more than 94 million passengers in 2016. With millions of people traveling through
airports each day, bacteria and viruses can spread easily and quickly around the world.

snowboards along when they travel. They also take bacteria and viruses
with them. Pathogens—disease-causing microbes—don’t have wings or
legs, so they can’t travel on their own. Instead, they hitch a ride to their
final destination. Often that ride is with a passenger who is sitting for
hours inside a crowded plane with poor air circulation.
Prolonged close contact during air travel greatly increases the
risk of one person passing a microbe to others. Air travel also often
includes stops and layovers along the way, and each of those layovers
and flight changes increases the time that a person can pick up—
and spread—an infection. It also increases the number of people to
whom a traveler is exposed and to whom that traveler can spread the
infection.

Bugs on a Plane 25