Thermographic screening at airports and any other locations where the public congregate or travel is targeting individuals who are already symptomatic and likely to be infectious, (coughing, sneezing and the production of mucus causing the fastest spread).

The highest risk for the geographic spread of infection is through travel and ’seeding’. Thermographically screening travelers has a multi level benefit.

1. Sensitive screening to detect abnormal physiology (hot or cold) will detect a high % of abnormal (which can then be individually evaluated and further tested if necessary)  This group will fall into the symptomatic category who will be best detected with a ‘mass’ screening approach (rapid movement through airports etc).

2. Sensitive and targeted screening to detect sub-clinical individuals who may not exhibit symptoms but will show abnormalities days before symptoms evolve.

This will be high risk groups or individuals, traveling from infected areas. The ‘targeted’ protocol will include the controlled testing of each individual (a single thermal image) which will have a greater specificity. The individual will be anterior to the camera, any spectacles or head covering removed and the head and neck will be imaged in a stable environment. (instead of just passing by the IR camera)  This group will fall into the asymptomatic category who will be best detected by individual screening checkpoints.

3. Establishing routine fever screening during outbreaks will deter individuals from traveling if they know or suspect that they have any symptoms whatsoever.

This group has the greatest potential to limit the spread through compliance with WHO and other advisory body recommendations (not to travel if you have been exposed to anyone infected or have any symptoms yourself).  ‘Nobody wants to be stopped and quarantined’.    

Conclusion:

Fever Screening stations will not prevent the spread of disease 100% but are an integral part of the effort to limit and contain the outbreak and reduce the number of deaths.  

As concern continues to mount about the spread of the swine flu globally, airport authorities are responding by using digital thermal imaging technology to scan passengers. Thermal imaging can detect elevated body temperature, one of the signs of the virus N1H1 (swine flu).

“Medical thermal imaging at airports and any other locations where the public congregate targets individuals who are already symptomatic and likely to be infectious,” says Peter Leando, Ph.D., Managing Director of Meditherm. Meditherm’s thermal imaging system is one of the only digital thermal imaging scanners designed specifically for the human body giving the airport authorities the accuracy that they are looking for to identify infected passengers travelling from country to country. The company’s  medical  thermal imaging systems are in use at airports in Aruba, Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Israel, Kuwait, Malaysia, New Zealand, Oman, the Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

The highest risk for the geographic spread of infection is through travel and “seeding”.  Thermal imaging of travelers has several benefits:

• Sensitive screening to detect abnormal physiology (hot or cold) will have a  high percentage of accuracy in detecting abnormal temperatures, which then leads to further testing of an individual in order to confirm symptoms or rule out clinical suspicion.  This group will generally already be symptomatic and are best detected with a mass screening approach including rapid movement through airports.

• Sensitive but targeted screening can detect individuals who may not exhibit symptoms but will show abnormalities days before symptoms evolve. This will include high risk groups of individuals, traveling from infected areas.

• Establishing routine fever screening during outbreaks will deter individuals from traveling if they know or suspect that they have any symptoms whatsoever. This group has the greatest potential to limit the spread by complying with the World Health Organization and other advisory body recommendations not to travel if you have been exposed to anyone infected or have any symptoms yourself.     

While fever screening stations will not prevent the spread completely, they are an integral part of the effort to limit the outbreak and reduce the number of deaths, says Dr. Leando.  

In recent days, more orders have been placed for Meditherm’s medical thermal imaging system from customers wanting to screen not only in airports but in large corporations, manufacturing plants and even public entertainment fascilities in the UK, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, St Martin, USA, Puerto Rico and Argentina, with enquiries also coming from several other countries, including Mexico.

About Meditherm

Based in Fort Myers, Florida, privately-owned Meditherm Inc. manufactures and distributes the Med 5220 and Med 520 line of digital thermal imaging systems, also known as Fever Screen Stations. Meditherm is currently the only medical device manufacturer building IR equipment exclusively for medical and clinical use and more than 2,000 Meditherm scanners are currently in use worldwide for a wide range of medical uses including fever screening, sports medicine, breast screening, pain clinics, and vascular studies which include stroke risk evaluation and deep vein thrombosis. www.meditherm.com

Meditherm’s Peter Leando is available for interviews to discuss thermal imaging.

Peter Leando

Managing Director, Meditherm Inc

1-239-334-8833

peter@meditherm.com

It became immediately obvious that the level of training required for the operating technicians (and their wide range of abilities) made quick and strategic installations difficult and performance was variable.  There was a learning curve for both the trainee technicians as well as our support and installation personnel.

This experience highlighted the need for software design that was specific to the temperature range and detection of fever and that could be used by untrained operators.

A proprietary software program was developed by our engineers that provided pre-selected ranges of temperature with manually and automatically set alarms (threshold temperature) which would target any temperature above a selected range that passed in front of the detector.

The detector needed to be radiometric and calibrated to read real-time absolute temperature and be flexible enough to handle ambient temperature changes, varying degrees of unstable environmental conditions (caused by air conditioning, sunlight, electronic equipment, different types of lighting and reflective surfaces).

The result was the med520 which was tested extensively over the following year and was available when the avian flu outbreak took place.

There have been some additional software updates in the last year, which have made the operation of the system even more intuitive and now we are faced with another pandemic outbreak the med520 is ideally suited for very quick setup in any environment and to be operated by anyone with minimal computer skills in order to detect abnormal physiology.

The major benefit of the med520 is the ease of installation and operation. There is no formal training required for operators, the system is connected to a mains power supply (any country) or can run from a 9 v battery pack. It takes less than 5 minutes to set up and begin screening.

The auto threshold temperature means that the system will automatically find the normal body temperature of individual people, individuals among groups or individuals in crowds being scanned, this then sets the threshold alarm for anyone present with a fever or in fact any abnormal temperature ranges (which may include lower temperatures caused by evaporative cooling……. perspiration) 

We are not just looking for hot spots, the med520 uses proprietary algorithms to detect findings that are more accurate for specific symptoms like fever, inflammation and infection. The result is a low percent of false positive but more importantly, a very low potential for false negative.

• Medical grade sensitivity
• Fast identification of high risk individuals with an audible and visible alarm
• Designed to operate continuously 24 hours a day indefinitely