Table 1 Characteristics of studies included in the qualitative synthesis
Author, year of publication | Type of study | Type of viral infection | Setting (no. of passengers) | Preventive measures | Outcome(s) | Main result(s) | Quality level (score)a | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Facemask use/hand hygiene | Other measures | |||||||
Caley, 2007 [20] | Mathematical model | Influenza | Flight (10–400) | Facemask use | Border screening, immediate presentation following symptom onset, flight-base quarantining | Time (days) of epidemic onset delay in an infection-free region following importation through air travel | Median time delay (days) increased from 57 to 79 days at an R0 of 1.5 and from 17 to 20 days at an R0 of 3.5 | Not available |
Gupta, 2012 [21] | Mathematical model | Influenza | Flight (21) | N95 respiratorb use | None | Infection probability | Infection probability was reduced from 15 to 0% (at 103 quanta per hourc) or from 100 to 55% (at 5226 quanta per hour) | Not available |
Nicolaides, 2020 [22] | Mathematical model | Influenza | Flights moving through a network of (unspecified) international airports | Increasing the percentage of hand hygiene for air-traveling people at any time from 20% (i.e., one out of five people) to 30, 40, 50%, or 60% | None | Infection prevalence and total square displacement (TSD) | Infection prevalence and TSD were reduced by 18.2–55.4% and 23.7–69.1%, respectively | Not available |
Zhang, 2013 [23] | Case-control study | Influenza A (H1N1) | Flight 1 (274) Flight 2 (144) | Facemask use and hand hygiene | None | Risk for infection transmission | Wearing a mask during flight reduced the infection transmission risk (OR, 0.0; 95% CI, 0.0–0.7) No difference in hand-hygiene compliance between infected and uninfected passengers | Medium (6) |