US-bound travellers from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea will face enhanced Ebola screening at five major US airports.
Passengers from the West African countries flying into Chicago O’Hare, New York JFK, Newark, Washington Dulles and Atlanta will have their temperatures taken, answer a travel health questionnaire and will be visually assessed for illness.
The increased security will start over the next few days with the five airports receiving 95% of passengers from the three West African countries.
The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said the measures will “further protect health of Americans” but warned “nothing will get us absolute zero risk” until Ebola is wiped out in West Africa.
The CDC confirmed that after passport review:
- Travellers from Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone will be escorted by CBP to an area of the airport set aside for screening.
- Trained CBP staff will observe them for signs of illness, ask them a series of health and exposure questions and provide health information for Ebola and reminders to monitor themselves for symptoms. Trained medical staff will take their temperature with a non-contact thermometer.
- If the travellers have fever, symptoms or the health questionnaire reveals possible Ebola exposure, they will be evaluated by a CDC quarantine station public health officer. The public health officer will again take a temperature reading and make a public health assessment. Travellers, who after this assessment, are determined to require further evaluation or monitoring will be referred to the appropriate public health authority.
- Travellers from these countries who have neither symptoms/fever nor a known history of exposure will receive health information for self-monitoring.
The Ebola outbreak has already killed more than 3,000 people and infected more than 7,200, mostly in West Africa.
The increase in passenger testing comes after the first person diagnosed with Ebola on US soil died in Dallas on Wednesday.
Thomas Duncan travelled to the US from Liberia, and was only diagnosed with the disease once he arrived in Texas.
Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson, said: "CBP personnel will continue to observe all travellers entering the United States for general overt signs of illnesses at all US ports of entry and these expanded screening measures will provide an additional layer of protection to help ensure the risk of Ebola in the United States is minimised.
"CBP, working closely with CDC, will continue to assess the risk of the spread of Ebola into the United States, and take additional measures, as necessary, to protect the American people."
Last week, US president Barack Obama admitted the chance of an Ebola outbreak in the US is “extremely unlikely” but said “we don’t have a lot of margin of error”.
The CDC has ruled out banning flights to the US from the affected countries, arguing the isolation would only worsen the outbreak within Africa and would deny those countries crucial aid.