Nearly two dozen people are being monitored for the Ebola virus in Washington state after traveling to African countries, where infection rates have risen in recent months, health officials said on Friday.
The state placed 23 “people under surveillance” for the deadly disease for 21 days after they returned to the US from Guinea and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the state health department said in a press release.
The virus began destroying parts of Guinea’s N’Zérékoré prefecture – a country where thousands of people died from the disease between 2014 and 2016 – along with North Kivu province in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to a press release.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now asking airlines to collect and provide contact information for all passengers in the two countries, according to health officials.
However, officials said Washington residents were still at “low risk” of contracting the virus.
Ebola, which is far more deadly than coronavirus, killed at least 11,300 in Guinea, which has a population of 12 million, during the 2014 Ebola crisis.
In February, Guinea said the Ebola virus had become an epidemic after three people died and four others were hospitalized.
People with the virus often have fever, pain and vomiting, diarrhea and other symptoms.