The United States will soon monitor trips coming to the country from two nations affected by the Ebola virus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced on Friday. The CDC confirmed those plans after CBS News first reported details Friday night.
Starting next week, the “very small number” of passengers arriving from Guinea and the Democratic Republic of Congo will be directed to six US airports, where their information will be collected and distributed to local health officials, the CDC said.
Starting February 25th nine Ebola cases have been reported in Guinea, resulting in five deaths and eight cases have been reported in the Democratic Republic of Congo, resulting in four deaths, according to the World Health Organization. The CDC stressed in its statement that “the outbreaks are centered in remote areas of these countries” and said “the risk of Ebola for the United States is extremely low.”
The CDC said the airlines “will collect and transmit passenger information to the CDC for public health tracking and intervention for all passengers boarding a flight to the United States who have been in the DRC or Guinea in the past 21 days. This information will be shared with the US state and local health departments to properly monitor arrivals in their jurisdiction.
A source familiar with the decision said John F. Kennedy in New York, Dulles outside Washington, O’Hare in Chicago, Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta, Los Angeles International Airport and Newark Liberty outside New York were considered as monitoring points. The CDC has not specified which airports it intends to use.
This approach to sewerage is similar to the measures taken in 2014, when passengers from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea were directed to five of these airports, where they were warmed on arrival.
Between March 2014 and April 2016, there were more than 28,000 cases of Ebola in West Africa and 11,310 people died, according to the CDC.
With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, there is recognition within the CDC that resources for additional monitoring are stretched thin, according to one of the people familiar with the talks. Nearly 30,000 people have been monitored by the CDC for Ebola since 2014, an effort that required hundreds of CDC staff, the CDC said.
“This is a great example of how we need to be prepared for anything in the public health arena,” said another source familiar with monitoring discussions before the news broke.
In 2014, the Obama administration appointed Ron Klain to lead the US Ebola strategy. Klain is now President Biden’s chief of staff.
Christina Ruffini and Max Bayer contributed to this story.