PROVO, Utah (ABC 4 News) - High tech forehead thermometers can take a person’s temperature in seconds and indicate if they have the fever associated with the H1N1 virus, but Utah health officials said using them would create more intrusion on people’s lives compared to the benefit it would bring.
Students who stopped at a booth in the Wilkinson Activity Center on the campus of Brigham Young University could get a quick scan find out if they have a fever. “You run the infrared scanner across their forehead, pause at the hair line, then press it behind the ear,” said BYU student Taber Cope as he tested a student. “I haven’t found very many who have a fever.”
Utah health officials said those between the ages of 20 and 40 run the greatest risk of contracting the H1NI virus, which killed 12 people in Utah in the past two months, so college kids want to know if they have the flu. "It is going around everywhere right now the flu, and we've actually been looking for the H1N1 vaccine and we haven't been able to take it yet,” said student Brent Lampson.
Students at BYU volunteer to take this temperature test, but some conference organizations including BYU now use these forehead thermometers to scan the crowds in an effort to exclude people who have flu symptoms that might contaminate others.
"It is not a bad way to identify influenza but it is not a perfect way. I would be kind of guessing but i would say between 25 and 40 percent of people with influenza don't have a fever, so it is not prefect,” said Utah State Epidemiologist Robert Rolfs.
Utah health officials do not object to the use of the forehead scanners, but don't plan to embrace the idea, unless they see an increase in the lose of life due to the h1n1 virus. "I think you can potentially find people who have influenza, but I think it is more intrusive that we are willing to recommend now for the benefit that we would see,” Rolfs said.
Airports outside the United States also use temperature body scanners to prevent those with flu symptoms from getting on a plane. But according to TSA no airports inside the U.S. do the temperature testing, including Salt Lake International. The Utah Health Department will put out an update on Wednesday about the number of deaths due to the swine flu in Utah.
Today they told ABC 4 News that the severity of the virus is much less than it was last spring in Utah.
