EMPLOYEES at Piarco International Airport were yesterday ’catering for the worst’, as preparations were being made to deal with any swine flu related problems that may be encountered when the Young Soca Warriors return home from Mexico today.

The Trinidad and Tobago national under-17 football team is expected to return to local shores around 4 p.m. today after a week-long stay in Tijuana, Mexico for the CONCACAF Under-17 Championships.

When the Express visited the airport yesterday, several boxes of ’protective gear’, including face masks, gloves, hand sanitisers and tins of disinfectant spray, were seen being carried through the lobby by staff.

’We are not sure what to expect tomorrow (today) when the boys arrive, so we are just making sure that we put things in place because we are catering for the worst,’ a staff member who requested anonymity told the Express yesterday.

Earlier this month swine flu ravaged Mexico City killing more than 80 people and sickening hundreds.

And the official website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, www.cdc.gov, yesterday reported that there are 40 reported cases of the swine flu infection in the United States.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention yesterday reported that 28 of those 40 infections are in New York city, home to many local citizens.

But as the Airport feverishly prepared for any possibility, with the arrival of the country’s teenaged footballers today, there was not much, if any, preparation when Caribbean Airlines BW 521 arrived from New York yesterday afternoon.

On Sunday, Communications director at the Ministry of Health, Dr Theomary Karamanis said that the Ministry has been moving to control the highly contagious virus by setting medical teams to screen visitors coming into the country.

But this was not the case yesterday according to passengers of BW 521 as they entered the country’s main entry point.

’It was the same old regular routine, nothing new,’ Freddy Guerra, a visitor from New York said yesterday.

’There was no specific mention made at all about the swine flu during the flight,’ Dr Vijay Naraynsingh who joined the flight in-transit at New York said.