Adrian Hugo Aginagalde
Spokesperson of the Spanish Society of Preventive Medicine, Public Health and Health Management (SEMPSPGS), Head of Service of the Epidemiological Surveillance and Health Information Unit of Gipuzkoa and, previously, Head of Service of the Population Screening Programmes Unit at the Ministry of Health
Scientific articles published so far point to a low effectiveness of symptom-based controls, vaccination passports and diagnostic tests for active infection in preventing community transmission of a variant of concern. In contrast, genomic surveillance of imported cases may be of interest given the low number of daily passengers received in Spain.
However, it should be borne in mind that most of these flights make stopovers and that variants from other continents do not normally arrive directly, but through intermediate countries with a greater flow of passengers. This is why the effectiveness of border measures against acute respiratory infections of viral origin (SARS, influenza, RSV, etc.) is considered to be low to very low and will depend on the objective, surveillance or prevention.