Limitations of Forehead Infrared Body Temperature Detection for Fever Screening for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome

We investigated alternative measurement methodology for infrared body thermometry to increase accuracy for outdoor fever screening during the 2003 SARS epidemic. Our results indicate that the auditory meatus temperature is a superior alternative compared with the forehead body surface temperature due to its close approximation to the tympanic temperature (Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2004;25:1109-1111). Many countries were affected by the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic of 2003. Several countries employed screening for fever as part of a SARS prevention plan to halt the spread of the disease. The government of Taiwan implemented a requirement to measure body temperature for individuals entering and exiting the country and also started measuring body temperature at screening stations set up at public facilities such as airports, hospitals, schools, government installations, and large confined spaces. This became a requirement for entering such facilities, but many different methods and devices were used to measure body temperature. During the height of the epidemic, screening was taking place outdoors to prevent the entrance of infected individuals into some buildings. Therefore, to take the body temperatures of a large number of individuals rapidly, the most common method used in Taiwan was infrared body thermometry measuring the forehead body surface temperature to detect fever. Because body surface temperature could be affected by many variables, forehead body temperature may not be an accurate predictor.1,2 How to use infrared body thermometry in a large population accurately under outdoor conditions thus became an issue worth investigating. We report the results of a study comparing the findings of infrared thermometry at two body sites with those of a tympanic thermometer.