In a worst-case scenario, Gate 34 at Honolulu International Airport — with enough space, facilities and security to accommodate 400 passengers — will be cleared out and used as an emergency quarantine station for patients suspected of carrying avian influenza, officials said yesterday

A team of seven nurses stands poised to take mucus samples from any incoming passenger who might be sick, officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Honolulu Quarantine office said at a news conference yesterday.

The details were among those disclosed yesterday about what officials said was an evolving plan to deal with an influenza outbreak here.

Finding space to quarantine possibly hundreds of people is a priority.

CDC Capt. Robert Tapia said talks are under way with military officials in Hawai'i to determine whether surplus military warehouses or barracks can be used as quarantine stations should the need arise.

Talks also are ongoing with the Hawai'i Health Care Association on whether any of the 31 hospitals that are organization members could provide quarantine services.

"I feel very strongly that we better have our ducks in order — I live here, my family lives here — and we better be prepared for what we'll see down the line," Tapia said.

In addition to the CDC plans, the state Department of Health in conjunction with The Queen's Medical Center began a program last week to screen ill travelers arriving in Honolulu for the types of influenza they may be suffering from, including bird flu.

Seven registered nurses working out of a small Queen's Medical Center clinic on the bottom floor of the airport will be collecting samples from passengers who might be sick. The clinic is staffed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and has been operating for the past 12 years. If an incoming flight reports a sick passenger aboard, one of the nurses meets the flight and asks the sick passenger if he or she would like to be screened.

Belinda Lee, a registered nurse who works for the airport Queen's Clinic, said a 4-inch cotton swab is inserted into each of the patient's nostrils "about as far as it will go" and the area is swabbed for about 20 seconds.

Each of the swabs is placed in a capped tube containing a solution that is then turned over to the state Department of Health for analysis. Results take about three days. A wealth of patient information is collected before the swabbing process so the Department of Health can contact the patient later if the illness turns out to be serious in nature, Lee said.

Dr. Catherine Chow, CDC medical officer for the state Department of Health, said the state's surveillance program has been in effect for about a week, but would not say how many ill passengers have agreed to the nasal swabs.

"We hope to catch anyone ... but the program is not designed to stop all dangerous diseases from coming into Hawai'i," Chow said.

It is possible for someone who has bird flu to not show any symptoms at all, Chow said.

Should the CDC have to quarantine only one or two people, Tapia said, his office in the 'ewa wing of the airport could accommodate them.

But a much larger space would be needed if a jumbo jet arrived here with a passenger who had visited one of the nations with confirmed bird flu cases and who exhibited symptoms of the disease. If it were determined that all of the passengers on the plane needed to be quarantined, they would be held — at least initially — at Gate 34, Tapia said.

The gate is currently used by Hawaiian Air for its transpacific flights. Tapia said it has restroom facilities and security configurations to allow the area to be divided into "hot" and "cold" zones to care for patients with active symptoms of the flu versus those who would have to wait out the incubation period — 10 to 21 days — to see if they will come down with it.

The decision to quarantine would be made after a consultation with CDC officials at the Atlanta headquarters, Tapia said.

"Our program is not voluntary," said Tapia, who has worked for the CDC and, previously, the U.S. Public Health Service for nearly 50 years, the last 38 of them in Hawai'i.

The last time Tapia ordered someone arriving in the U.S. to be quarantined, it was in New York in 1958, when smallpox was suspected. But, he said, he wouldn't hesitate to order that travelers arriving in Honolulu be quarantined if the situation dictates.

To date there has been no confirmation of human-to-human spread of bird flu, but it's vital to be ready, Tapia said.

Reach David Waite at dwaite@honoluluadvertiser.com.