By Marissa Calligeros
The Federal Government has not ruled out screening domestic travellers for swine flu before they board planes in order to prevent people transmitting the disease in-flight.
Eight Queenslanders have now tested positive to swine flu, all of whom had travelled by plane in the past week.
Six sufferers who disembarked from the P&O cruise ship Pacific Dawn all returned to Queensland by plane, five of them on board the same Virgin Blue flight from Sydney to the Gold Coast.
Thermal scanners began screening travellers for high temperatures at eight of Australia's international airports on April 30 to help prevent the H1N1 strain entering the nation's borders.
However, the efforts failed to halt the arrival of the flu, with 61 confirmed cases of the virus at midday today.
A Cairns woman told to remain at home has lashed out at the 20-year-old Brisbane student diagnosed with swine flu, whom she sat next to on a flight from Los Angeles to Brisbane at the weekend.
The 52-year-old Mooroobool woman, who asked to remain anonymous, is in remission with breast cancer, and was in the United States visiting her daughter and grandchildren ahead of surgery originally scheduled for today. Her surgery has now been postponed.
She claimed the 20-year-old Paddington student, who was diagnosed with swine flu on Monday, two days after returning to Brisbane, was visibily unwell on the flight but made little effort to prevent passing the virus to other passengers.
"She was very sick and did her darndest to hide it. She only wore her mask when the crew were serving meals nearby and occasionally when the cabin lights were on," the woman told brisbanetimes.com.au.
"This is not normal times and every man and his dog knows that there are requirements for reporting illness... airlines assume that you are medically fit to travel," she said.
"Now the surgery scheduled for today has been cancelled because of her selfish and irresponsible actions."
The 20-year-old woman declined to comment when contacted yesterday, although she told brisbanetimes.com.au on Monday she had believed she was only suffering a seasonal cold.
The Federal Government has so far refused to confirm whether a meeting of the Australian Health Protection Committee in Canberra yesterday discussed plans to screen all domestic and overseas travellers.
"The government takes advice from the Australian Health Protection Committee which is monitoring closely border measures and their effectiveness," a Department of Health spokeswoman said.
Australia's Chief Health Officer said quarantining people against their will was not an option.
"No country has ever been able to stop any flu coming into their country or spreading. It's not possible by quarantining ships or quarantining planes or by jailing people, quarantining them against their will, to stop the spread of flu," Dr Bishop told ABC Radio this morning.
"We're doing the best we can, and Australia has done tremendously well to delay the input into country."
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