Passengers from a charter flight out of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico say the swine flu did not scare them during their vacation.
“There were no reported cases of swine flu or anything where we were. Totally safe, had a great trip and a perfect trip back,” says Dwight Bellomy of Beckley.
Bellomy was just one of 160 people who went on the trip sponsored by State Electric Supply out of Huntington five days ago. The tourists were told that the nearest case of swine flu was 600 miles away in Mexico City.
State Electric CEO Clarence Martin tells MetroNews that during the entire trip people in Mexico were being proactive in making sure the flu did not spread.
“The hotel, the travel service that coordinated the trip for us, we got updates everyday (from them). They disseminated information so that people would be careful and take any precautions to avoid infection,” says Martin.
He says that extended to the airports in Puerto Vallarta and New Orleans on the trip back home. Each stop made sure no one had flu symptoms with questionnaires and other noninvasive screening processes. Contrary to rumors, no one was swabbed for flu cultures during those stops according to the vacationers.
Health officials in Charleston also made sure the passengers understood the symptoms of swine flu when the plane made its final stop at Yeager Airport just in case they would develop symptoms in the coming days.
“We were met by the CDC in Charleston with an envelope with further information that was much of the same thing we had seen,” Martin says.
The swine flu has been reported in 11 states so far with over 90 cases and one death reported in the United States. In Mexico, only eight deaths have been confirmed by lab tests according to the Mexican government, but there may be as many as 160 deaths related to the virus.
The World Health Organization also raised its pandemic threat level to Level 5 Wednesday meaning a pandemic is imminent from this strain.