Passengers Reveal Consuming Paracetamol Before Flights To Evade Thermal Screening

In an act of desperation, to evade thermal screening at the airports, many passengers have admitted to have taken a pill of paracetamol before boarding their respective flights.

With thermal screening becoming a necessary protocol measure at points of entry to catch a flight, train or bus back home in or outside India, many passengers confessed to having consumed a medicinal pill in order to keep their temperature normal.

In a conversation with The Indian Express, a handful of passengers who landed in Bengaluru and Mangaluru airports as part of the Vande Bharat Mission confessed they popped a pill in an act of desperation. "A day before I boarded the flight, I had developed symptoms of fever and cold and my body temperature kept rising. When I reached out to a physician using a tele-medical facility, he advised me to take a double dose of paracetamol an hour before leaving for the airport," said a female professional.

When asked whether she was aware that this would have put her co-passengers and even the flight crew under risk, she said, "I had no other option but to fly back home as I had lost my part-time job and was facing uncertainty on my future in another country."

Luckily the woman was tested negative for COVID-19. However, in another case, a man in his early forties was told that he would be sent back to his labour camp in Dubai if he tested positive. The man had however resigned from his job before coming to India and had no place to return and thus was forced to take the pill. Three days later, he was tested positive for coronavirus and was admitted to a designated facility in Dakshina Kannada district.

Dr. Bindumathi PL, Sr. Consultant, Internal Medicine, Aster CMI Hospital, while asking passengers to not indulge in these activities as it might prove fatal for other co-passengers too, also emphasized on the need to wear masks while traveling in order to avoid contracting the virus from an asymptomatic carrier.

Education Minister S Suresh Kumar, who is also Karnataka's COVID-19 spokesperson told The Indian Express that cases of passenger popping tablets have been less in number so far. "Even if some are popping paracetamols during their journey back home here, we are able to identify such cases once they are in the mandatory institution quarantine. As the effect of these tablets would not stay for long, symptoms will reappear making it identifiable and be sent for testing," he added.

Health workers are trying to devise ways to discourage the practice, one of the ways is by conducting COVID-19 tests for each traveler prior to their travel date.

Also Read: Aarogya Setu, Thermal Screening Mandatory: How Air Travel Will Be From May 25