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Imported COVID-19: The Challenges of Emigration Screening

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 March 2021

Rujittika Mungmunpuntipantip*
Affiliation:
Private Academic Consultant, Bangkok Thailand
Viroj Wiwanitkit
Affiliation:
Dr DY Patil University, Pune, India Hainan Medical University, Haikou, China
*
Corresponding author: Rujittika Mungmunpuntipantip, Email: rujittika@gmail.com.
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Abstract

Type
Letter to the Editor
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
© Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Inc. 2021

COVID-19 is an important new coronavirus infection. The disease it causes has been identified in more than 60 countries. Reference Hsia1 Indochina was the second area with an identified case in the timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic and Thailand is the first area reporting the case outside China. Reference Sriwijitalai and Wiwanitkit2 Screening for disease at international border posts was a national public health policy against COVID-19 implemented from January 2020 onward. The screening had apparent limitations, Reference Sriwijitalai and Wiwanitkit2 as other countries still reported detection of COVID-19 in travelers from Indochina. Reference Yasri and Wiwanitkit3 In this letter, the authors discuss the topic of COVID-19 exported to other countries, which can illustrate the challenges of emigration screening. According to data from local Immigration Bureau, 3338710 foreigners were screened for COVID-19 at the international emigration post. Regarding exportation of disease, at least 3 patients who had a history of traveling have been confirmed to have COVID-19. The rate of undetected COVID-19 cases at the emigration international border post is therefore 9 x 10−5% (95% confidence interval between 3 x 10-5% and 2.8 x 10−4%). In the worst case scenario, 3 out of 1000000 travelers might carry COVID-19 to their next destination. Entrance or immigration screening is usually intensive, while exit or emigration screening is less strict. A good disease screening system for both immigration and emigration can promote early detection and prevent the international spread of COVID-19.

Conflict of interest

None.

References

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Yasri, S, Wiwanitkit, V. Exported Wuhan novel coronavirus infection: An expected rate with reference to main destination of Chinese tourist, Thailand. Int J Prev Med. 2020;11:28.10.4103/ijpvm.IJPVM_39_20CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed