smallpox scare in air

USAir flight 1014 - New Orleans-Charlotte held on runway while man tested for smallpox

Update: He was the Director of the Navy Medical Service Corps? (kos diary)

That is weird.

Update: WBTV news story and in Reason Magazine
Admiral Brannman

Director of Naval Medical Center San Diego or he was until recently
Hm, they have an infectious disease clinic (duh, they're ginormous) doing antiviral research.
Naval Health Research Center is working on effects of smallpox vaccine on pregnancy...
Chimerix is working on a smallpox antiviral - they are based in North Carolina, their Chairman of the Board of Directors is based in San Diego, ex-navy.
Their CMX001 is in phase I clinical trials (ie testing safety of vaccine on healthy volunteers - officially CDC Atlanta is the only place in US permitted to handle life smallpox virus)

Maybe that is enough to scare a senior health administrator?

----Old Bit Below----

Almost certainly a false alarm, report is the man was drunk, but still, holding the plane and taking him off for testing is the prudent thing to do. Kinda rough on the other passengers.
Know soon what the lab results say.
I'm impressed they had that much of a plan to deal with it.

(seen on kos of course)

False alarm, apparently

Be interesting what consequences will be for hoaxer.
Also be interesting to know what tests give the result so fast. Blood antibody screening? They have smallpox anitbody test at hand at regional facilities?

cf UCSF smallpox guidelines - suggests that specimen testing has to be done by Dept of Health, no in-hospital.
Maybe they've just checked for clinical symptoms.

Here are the UNC handling guidelines - I don't believe they've tested for virus so fast. Certainly not if it requires direct imaging to check for presence of virus.

I don't believe this proposed fast test has made it to market yet