From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov

Transcript for: Air Travel and Communicable Diseases

Description: Audio Interview by GAO staff with Gerald Dillingham,
Director, Physical Infrastructure

Related GAO-16-127 Air Travel and Communicable Diseases: Need For
Comprehensive Federal Plan on U.S. Aviation System's Preparedness

Released: December 2015


[ Background Music ]

[ Narrator: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and
information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. It's
December 2015. The recent Ebola epidemic renewed concern about diseases
spreading through air travel, leading some in the United States to
propose travel restrictions to and from affected countries. A team led
by Gerald Dillingham, a director in GAO's Physical Infrastructure team,
recently examined how some airports and airlines prepare for outbreaks
of communicable diseases. Eden Savino sat down with Gerald to talk about
what they found.

[ Eden Savino: ] Dr. Dillingham, thank you so much for joining us today.
Since diseases like Ebola can usually cross borders, who's responsible
here and abroad for containing them?

[ Gerald Dillingham: ] Well, there are many entities involved in
addressing communicable diseases. On the global level, the lead
organization is the UN's World Health Organization and also within the
UN is the International Civil Aviation Organization, which works most
especially with aviation. At the national level, it's usually the state
agency, the state health agency, and by that I mean in our case, it's
Health and Human Services and the Center for Disease Control and they
work hand in glove with state and local agencies as well in these cases.

[ Eden Savino: ] Sounds like a lot of entities. I think it's a lot of
diseases. I know that Ebola's been in the news a lot recently but what
other kinds of diseases are we talking about here?

[ Gerald Dillingham: ] Well, you know there are several hundred
communicable diseases that have been identified but for the United
States, I think the turning point or the watershed was in 2003 with the
SARS epidemic, which was followed subsequently by influenza, several
strains of influenza, so you're right, there are lots of strains and we
always have to be on guard.

[ Eden Savino: ] In terms of airports and airlines, are there national
or international guidelines they're supposed to follow when preparing
for these panoply of diseases?

[ Gerald Dillingham: ] I think the answer there is some yes and some no.
In other words, there are no national required guidelines for planning
for communicable diseases. However, as I mentioned about the UN, the UN
has -- and the International Civil Aviation Organization -- has given
some guidelines and guidance to its member states, which the United
States is a member of, to develop such a plan. That's one of the things
that we looked at during our work but there are no requirements for
national plans at this point in time.

[ Eden Savino: ] So what is the federal government's role in preparing
for dealing with these diseases at our airports?

[ Gerald Dillingham: ] Well, here's a case where even though there are
no requirements for national plans, many of the airports are developing
plans and they're also implementing those plans and testing them all at
the same time. Equally important to that is that there are several
agencies in the government that are associated with communicable
diseases. Of course there's the CDC that we mentioned earlier but
there's also the FAA and DOT for airline and other transportation modes.
There is also -- believe it or not -- OSHA, which has to deal with
health and human welfare in the workplace and this applies a lot to the
people who clean the airplanes between flights and so forth. There's
also Homeland Security and Customs and Border Patrol because they are
key in terms of people entering the United States. So there's a range of
federal agencies that are involved in trying to deal with communicable
diseases.

[ Eden Savino: ] And it's my understand that your team spoke to a
variety of airports and airlines about what they're doing to prepare for
all of these diseases and working with these various entities. What did
you learn when you spoke to these airports and airlines?

[ Gerald Dillingham: ] Yes, we took a sample of airports and airlines.
We looked at some of the largest airlines and some of the largest
airports, particularly those airports where are kind of ports of entry
for people coming from around the world and all of the airports that we
looked at had a plan, all of the airlines that we talked to had a plan.
And so it's now a matter of moving that plan out further and those
issues to be involving more stakeholders.

[ Eden Savino: ] So is GAO making recommendations in this report?

[ Gerald Dillingham: ] Yes, we are. You know, we talked a little earlier
about the fact that there were individual plans but no requirements. But
what we found was that there was no national plan for addressing
communicable diseases and we made that recommendation to the Department
of Transportation and others that if you had a comprehensive national
plan, it would bring all the individual plans together. It would allow
leverage of resources. It would allow testing and readiness and
preparedness. So that's the one recommendation that we made is that FAA
and the other stakeholder agencies get together and start talking about
a national communicable disease plan.

[ Eden Savino: ] So finally, for those of us heading to the airport,
what is the bottom line message of this report?

[ Gerald Dillingham: ] The bottom line message is of course that we
still have the safest airline system in the world and I think because of
the actions of the airlines and the airports that passengers going to
the airport today have no more to fear for communicable diseases than
they would ordinarily have and that they should take the precautions
that they normally take in their everyday activities for sanitation and
health when they're on that aircraft.

[ Background Music ]

 [ Eden Savino: ] Very good, thank you so much Dr. Dillingham.

[ Gerald Dillingham: ] Thank you.

 [ Narrator: ] To learn more, visit GAO.gov and be sure to tune in to
the next episode of GAO's Watchdog Report for more from the
congressional watchdog, the U.S. Government Accountability Office.