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New Zealand fishermen case highlights challenges of accurate pre-departure COVID-19 testing
October 23rd 2020
News this week that 18 fishermen from Russia and the Ukraine were diagnosed with COVID-19 after arriving in New Zealand, despite undergoing pre-departure testing, has highlighted the challenges of resuming air travel with the virus still in the community. Read More »
The men were among 235 fellow seamen on a charter flight from Moscow to Christchurch, via Singapore. They arrived in New Zealand late last week and were placed in mandatory 14-day quarantine at a local hotel.
When the group was tested for COVID-19, 18 of the travellers on the flight were diagnosed with the virus and placed in an isolation wing of the hotel.
New Zealand director general of health, Dr. Ashley Bloomfield, told reporters this week the seamen had self-isolated for two weeks and received a PCR test before departure from Moscow. Apart from two men who returned positive tests and did not board the flight, all were cleared to fly. They did not disembark the aircraft during a refuelling stop in Singapore.
“At least one person who boarded that plane was infectious," Dr. Bloomfield said on Wednesday, a transcript posted on the New Zealand Ministry of Health website said.
"There may have been transmission on the plane. There may have been transmission when they arrived here. But the important thing is we do everything the same anyway and the fact we found these infections is proof the system is working.”
All the seamen, who were travelling to New Zealand to work for the off-shore fishing industry, were tested again yesterday, with the 14-day quarantine period likely to be extended because of the number of infections. Staff at the hotel, Christchurch Airport and the bus company employees that transported the workers from the airport also were being tested.
One of the challenges of pre-departure testing was New Zealand did not have "any ability to test the validity of the process, the swabbing, the laboratory or any rapid testing process", Dr. Bloomfield said.
"What we have here is a really good opportunity to look at the value pre-departure testing has or not," he said.
"Often that has to happen a few days before departure, especially if it is a PCR test, to obtain a result before embarkation. Now we clearly have a number of positive results at day three that were negative at pre-departure testing.
“What it suggests is pre-departure testing may add some value but it won’t change anything that we do at this end. The regime we have with our 14 days in managed isolation plus our day three and day 12 testing continues to be the mainstay of how we will keep the virus out of New Zealand."
The Russian Federation has been one of the worst-affected countries by the pandemic with about 1.4 million cases of COVID-19 and 25,000 deaths due to the disease, figures from Johns Hopkins University report.
In contrast, New Zealand's total COVID-19 cases were below 2,000, with 25 deaths recorded.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) and Airports Council International (ACI) World have called for governments to ease travel restrictions and re-open borders through the development and deployment of a rapid, accurate, affordable, easy-to-operate, scalable and systematic COVID-19 testing for all passengers before departure.
Testing for COVID-19 before departure rather than quarantine measures on arrival would give governments the confidence to open their borders without complicated risk models that see constant changes in the rules imposed on travel, IATA said last month.
The aircraft that flew the seamen to New Zealand, Singapore Airlines A350-900 9V-SMM, was on the ground in Christchurch for 17 hours before returning to Singapore, according to flight tracking website Flightaware.
A second charter flight for foreign workers coming to New Zealand for the fishing season, due to arrive on November 2, would likely to be delayed, New Zealand health minister, Chris Hipkins, told reporters this week.
