A Portable Infection Screening System Designed for Onboard Entry Screening Based on Multi-Parameter Vital Signs

Abstract

After outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003, many international airport quarantines adopted fever-based screening to identify infected individuals using infrared thermography to control global pandemic. Unfortunately, the sensitivity of fever-based screening system did not exceed 70.4% at Narita International Airport. In order to achieve accurate onboard entry screening for highly contagious infectious diseases, the authors developed a portable system designed for onboard entry screening with linear discriminant analysis. Within several tens of seconds, the system automatically discriminates infected individuals from normal subjects using measured heart rate, respiratory rate, as well as facial surface temperature determined by thermography. The size of system is small enough to be placed on airplane tray tables. The authors tested on 68 subjects including 12 influenza patients to evaluate the system. The result showed sensitivity of 91.7% and specificity of 92.9%. The system seems to be promising for onboard infection screening to safeguard public health.