Officials Wearing Masks and Gowns Attend to Passengers on Adelaide Flight From Qatar

Officials dressed in protective clothing attended to passengers — including a mother and toddler — aboard a Qatar Airways flight that landed in Adelaide, South Australia, from the Middle Eastern city of Doha, on March 3.

This footage shows health officials boarding the flight and speaking to a woman holding a young child.

“Once we had landed we were advised to take [a] seat as a doctor needed to board due to a passenger not being well,” a traveller, who filmed this video, told Storyful.

“One paramedic boarded, he went away for a moment and then a small team of three got on. There was a couple, male and female, in what I can describe as possible 30s or late 20s with a small child being checked.”

Isolation procedures were in place at Australian international airports, according to health minister Greg Hunt, who said travellers arriving from high-risk countries were being “specifically investigated upon arrival” by Border Force and other officials.

“We have health officials on the ground at Adelaide airport so seeing them aboard a flight is not unusual,” a spokesperson for South Australia Health told Storyful.

On March 3, Australia increased its travel restrictions for those entering the country from western Asia, including Iran and Qatar, as cases of the virus increased in those territories. Travellers touching down in Australia from Middle Eastern countries were required to self-isolate for 14 days.

Of the 33 confirmed cases in Australia, three were reported in South Australia, the state’s Department for Health and Wellbeing said, while 15 cases were confirmed in New South Wales, and seven had been reported in Queensland. Four cases in Australia had been people who had travelled from Iran, Hunt said.

A West Australian man, James Kwan, 78, died from complications arising from the virus on March 1. Credit: @King_Body_Art via Storyful