DEAR DIANA “People are catching the mumps on flights!! Have your heard of this? What should we do?”-Shani

DIANA RESPONDS

Yes. The Centers For Disease Control (CDC) has issued a warning of mumps (a contagious virus) on at least four airlines: American, Northwest, American Eagle, and Mesaba airlines.

The CDC warning explains that mumps normally spreads when contagious individuals cough or sneeze.

It is my observation that many people unintentionally spit when they talk. So, obviously, in confined aircraft cabins, mumps will likely spread when we converse with others who are contagious.

The CDC recommends that we reduce our chances of infection by getting the mumps vaccine.

• Anyone who is immune-compromised could have an adverse reaction to the mumps vaccine or any other vaccine.

DIANA FAIRECHILD'S RECOMMENDATIONS

• Mumps may also be contracted by hand to mouth contact with infected surfaces. If you are a white knuckler, wear gloves when you squeeze the armrests as the white knuckler before you may have been contagious. Flight attendants should not touch the rim of a glass where someone has put their mouth. Everyone on board should wash their hands with soap and hot water after touching lavatory door knobs. When I leave the lav, I open the door with a paper towel in hand.

• While on board, protect yourself by wearing a mask or handkerchief. I cover my nose and mouth with a water-saturated hankie. This helps block the spread of viruses, while also providing humidity for my lungs. I wear the hankie over my nose and mouth in crowded airplanes cabins and on the jet bridge when boarding/deplaning flights. Handkerchiefs are made of a variety of fabrics, weaves, blends, thicknesses, and pore sizes. All of these specifications affect, to varying degrees, the ability of the handkerchief to protect us from airborne diseases. However, when the cotton is dampened with water, the fibers swell, making them even more effective in blocking disease organisms.

• When you travel, carry a disposable, surgical mask in your bag in case someone on board is coughing. Though I won't wear a surgical mask myself because of the toxicity in the stiffening material in the mask (which I don't want to breathe), a surgical mask is more appealing than a handkerchief for most pax. Present the individual who is coughing with the mask, saying something like you understand they would probably want to wear this in order to help cut down on the transmission of their disease.

• If the air feels lousy on you flight, politely ask for better air. Gently, kindly, ask your flight attendant (remember s/he is breathing the same air you are): "When you have time, please ask the pilot for less recirculated air and more fresh air because there are contagious individuals on board." Even though using all the fresh air available on board won't eliminate the threat of catching a contagious disease on on a flight, it will definitely help to cut down on the transmission of contagious diseases in planes. Definitely.

• POST FLIGHT: Monitor yourself for 21 days (mumps incubation period). Some symptoms of mumps are fever, headache, pain swallowing, swelling of the parotid glands (salivary glands in front of each ear), and scrotal swelling.

AIRBORNE CONTAGIOUS DISEASES

Airborne diseases transmitted in airplane cabins include the flu, the common cold, the mumps, pneumonia, measles, meningitis, SARS, and TB.

In 1997, there was a news story about contagious tuberculosis on a flight. The airline, Sabena, is commended for notifying all pax after the flight.

Two Scottish TV executives caught a drug-resistant strain of TB on that flight and called me for more information and to organize an expose on the transmission of contagious diseases on board commercial airplanes. But they soon dropped the idea with no explanation.

The problem of contagious diseases in planes is of global proportions and urgently needs to be addressed.

Once someone with a contagious disease gets on a plane, that disease is potentially 24 hours from every airport in the world.