A 20-year-old Australian woman backpacking in Ireland has become the latest person admitted to hospital with blood-clotting problems following a longhaul flight.
Ms Paula Sloan, who was admitted to St Luke's Hospital, Kilkenny, on Friday, claims her blood-clotting problem or thrombosis is the result of a 25hour flight from Perth to Dublin because she never had any history of blood clotting.
She arrived in Dublin from Perth on December 30th and almost immediately noticed bruising on her legs. She had been travelling for 30 hours, 25 of them flying, with short stopovers in Thailand and London.
Meanwhile in Britain, the family of Mr Thomas Lamb (68) who died from deep-vein thrombosis (DVT) in November after falling ill on a flight from London to Australia is considering taking legal action against the airline which carried him.
Cramped conditions in cheaper airlines are thought to heighten the risk of blood clotting as passengers sit still for hours.