In-Flight Transmission of SARS-CoV-2

Abstract

Four persons with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection had traveled on the same flight from Boston, Massachusetts, USA, to Hong Kong, China. Their virus genetic sequences are identical, unique, and belong to a clade not previously identified in Hong Kong, which strongly suggests that the virus can be transmitted during air travel.

Keywords: 2019 novel coronavirus disease; COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; air travel; aircraft; case reports; coronavirus disease; disease transmission; epidemiologic studies; genome; infectious; respiratory infections; severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; viral; viruses; whole-genome sequencing; zoonoses.

Figure

Phylogenetic tree of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) viruses isolated from passengers and airline crew members who traveled on the same flight from Boston, Massachusetts, USA, to Hong Kong, China. Human SARS-CoV-2 WIV04 is selected to be the root of this phylogenetic tree. The tree was constructed by using the neighbor-joining method. Only bootstrap values >80 are shown. Representative viruses from clades L, S, V, G, GH, GR, and O (others) are included in the analysis. Virus sequences from patients A–D reported in this study are grouped to clade G (GISAID [http://platform.gisaid.org] accession nos. EPI_ISL_476801 to EPI_ISL_476804). EPI ISL accession nos. for sequences retrieved in GISAID (http://platform.gisaid.org) are provided. Scale bar indicates estimated genetic distance.