In late 2008, the International Electrotechnical Commission – IEC published the standard:
IEC 80601-2-59 Ed. 1.0 “Medical electrical equipment – Part 2-59: Particular requirements for the basic safety and essential performance of screening thermographs for human febrile temperature screening” .
Publication date 2008-10-21
IEC 80601-2-59:2008 applies to the basic safety and essential performance of screening thermographs intended to be used for the individual non-invasive febrile temperature screening of humans under indoor environmental conditions. IEC 80601-2-59:2008 sets laboratory characterization test limits for the screening thermograph.
The contents of the corrigendum of April 2009 have been included in this copy.
NOTE: Here is a quotation of one paragraph of the Introduction to this standard, available in the the downloadable, free preview from the IEC Website. In our view it goes a long way towards dispelling the mis-information that has appeared in the public and technical literature suggesting that there is little to no value in this technology.
“A body core temperature of 38 °C or above was used as the criterion to restrict traveling during the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) epidemic (April 2003). [73] The US Center for Disease Control advises that SARS typically begins with a temperature above 38 °C, which is 1 °C higher than normal human body core temperature which averages around 37 °C. [29] It is hard to give an accurate assessment of how many people were checked by infrared temperature measurements in China during the SARS epidemic. There is official Chinese government data indicating that during a two-month period in the spring of 2003, 30 million travelers were screened in China. From this cohort, 9 292 travelers with elevated temperature were detected and 38 were suspected of being SARS carriers. SARS was diagnosed in 21 of these cases. All elevated temperatures were confirmed using traditional clinical temperature measurements of body temperature. Although it is hard to determine the human body’s core temperature accurately by infrared measurement of SKIN TEMPERATURE, it is a potential method for screening for elevated temperature values. [36] [73] [75]“
Technical Committee 62D – Electromedical Equipment RSS
ICS codes 11.040.55 – Diagnostic equipment
Maintenance result date 2013
Preview (PDF Download from the IEC Website) – CLICK HERE.
Copies may be purchased online from the IEC Webstore in Switzerland:
Format, price (Swiss francs) and language (English & French) PDF Version: 140.; CD ROM Version: 154
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The standard is also available for purchase at the ANSI website: webstore.ansi.org RecordDetail.aspx?sku=IEC+80601-2-59+Ed.+1.0+b%3a2008.
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