The C130 of the 46 ^ Air Brigade of Pisa of the Italian Air Force has just landed in Pratica di Mare (RM) with a Filipino seafarer on board returning from New Guinea considered a country at risk for infectious diseases.
The patient traveled in a special "ATI" (Aircraft Transport Isolator) airborne insulated stretcher, and was assisted during the one-hour transfer flight by a medical team of the Italian Air Force specialized in bio-containment, composed of doctors, specialists and on-board personnel.
An ambulance from the Lazzaro Spallanzani Institute in Rome, also equipped for biocontainment, was waiting for the patient on the track. The transfer of the patient from the airborne stretcher to that of the ambulance always took place in complete isolation. The ambulance then left for the hospital, where the patient will be hospitalized.
The Air Force biocontainment unit was alerted during the night at the request of the Ministry of Health. A consolidated procedure that had already been implemented in May when a C-130J aircraft of the 46 ^ Air Brigade of Pisa was engaged in a mission of Emergency Medical Service (PIS) for the transport of a thirty-year-old patient with tuberculosis from the airport of Catania Fontanarossa to the military airport of Pratica di Mare (Rome).
The ability to carry out transport of highly infectious patients through the use of special isolated stretchers is a peculiarity held in Europe exclusively by the Air Force and the Royal Air Force. The Air Force has developed the capacity for aero-medical evacuation in bio-containment since the 2005, working closely with both the Ministry of Health and the Civil Protection Department; this capacity is based on the use of special "ATI" (Aircraft Transport Isolator) and the smaller "STI" terrestrial systems (Stretcher Transit Isolator), indispensable when transferring the patient from the aircraft to the ambulance. Long-distance "biocontainment" air transport is currently carried out on C-130 J "Hercules", C-27 J "Spartan" and KC-767 aircraft.
