ICAO's anti-SARS airport activities

To prevent SARS from spreading through air travel and in order to rebuild the confidence of the traveling public in the safety of air travel, ICAO has set up an "Anti-SARS Airport Evaluation Project." The first phase of this project was to develop a set of protective measures for international airports in affected areas to adopt and implement and then to send out, on the request of Contracting States, a team of inspectors to evaluate and assess airports and issue a "statement of evaluation" that the airport inspected complies with the ICAO anti-SARS protective measures. In cooperation with the World Health Organization (WHO), the first part of phase 1 was completed in early June this year, and the second part of phase 1 followed soon after. By mid-July, five international airports in Southeast Asia had been inspected and found to be in full compliance with the ICAO anti-SARS protective measures. The success of this ICAO project is believed to have contributed significantly to the recovery of international air travel and related industries now taking place. Phase 2 of the project is now being developed. It is aimed at preventing a resurgence of SARS, but it also contains elements to make the methodology developed applicable to future outbreaks of any other communicable disease in which the mode of transmission could involve aviation and/or the need to prevent the spread of the disease by air travel.