Flight Quarantined at Chicago Midway
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ABC News(CHICAGO) — After a reported quarantine, passengers on a Delta flight that landed at Chicago’s Midway Airport were allowed to disembark.
The news of a quarantine of flight 3163 from Detroit followed reports of an ill passenger, according to ABC News station WLS in Chicago.
The CDC had initially contacted Delta and asked it to hold the plane, according to a statement from the airline.
Officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Chicago Department of Health met the plane on the tarmac and worked with emergency crews to assess the issue. According to the city’s Department of Aviation, the plane landed at the airport Thursday afternoon.
Passengers on the flight said that the plane pulled up to the gate after landing, but the pilot would not open the door, according to a report in the Detroit Free Press. Instead, according to the article, two officers in Hazmat suits from the Chicago Fire Department boarded the plane to examine a passenger, a woman from Uganda. The officers took pictures of the woman and sent them to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to the passenger quoted in the article.
The head of quarantine at the CDC told ABC News chief health and medical editor Dr. Richard Besser that the female passenger, who had been in Uganda, had displayed a skin rash. However, she had no fever, swelled lymph nodes or other indicators of a serious infectious disease.
After officers on the scene assessed the condition of the passenger in question, the CDC released all passengers from the plane.
Health officials reportedly interviewed some passengers on the flight.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio