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Ebola Airport Screening Finding Few Suspected Cases in US

MEDSCAPE MEDICAL NEWS by Larry Hand                                                                        Dec. 9, 2014

Airport exit screening in West Africa and entry screening in the United States have identified few persons potentially infected with Ebola virus, according to an article published online December 9 in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) publication Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

 

 Number of travelers arriving from Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone who were screened for Ebola at US airports, by state and county of destination (October 11 - November 10, 2014). Source: CDC

Of 80,000 travelers who have departed from West Africa since Ebola-specific screening began, 1993 people have been screened on arrival at one of five US airports. Of those, 86 passengers were referred to the CDC public health officers; only seven have shown symptoms and been referred for evaluation. None eventually wound up with an Ebola diagnosis.

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Cooler box-equipped motorbikes donated to UN will speed up Ebola testing process in West Africa

UNITED NATIONS NEWS CENTRE                                                                             Dec. 4, 2014
Four hundred motorbikes equipped with cooler boxes will help speed up deliveries of blood samples to laboratories from remote areas of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone and reduce the waiting time for Ebola test results, thanks to a donation today from Germany to the United Nations.

Four hundred cooler box-equipped motorbikes for the Ebola Response were officially handed over to the UN Humanitarian Response Depot by German Ambassador to Ghana Ruediger John, and will be used to bring blood samples to labs in the most affected areas of Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea. UNMEER Photo/Martine Perret

At UN Headquarters, meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told reporters that the immediate priorities of the United Nations are to stop the virus and to treat all the people who have Ebola. “We have to ensure that all essential services are provided, and also we have to help them preserve their social and political stability, and keeping a further outbreak from happening.”

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Notable Absence of New Ebola Quarantines at New York Area Airports

NEW YORK TIMES    By Anemona Hartocollis                                                          NOV. 24, 2014

NEW YORK   ...since Kaci Hickox, a nurse, flew into Newark’s airport on Oct. 24 and was kept at a hospital for three days, no one else has been caught up in the quarantine dragnet at the New York and New Jersey airports.

The absence of quarantines is striking, not only because both governors emphatically defended the policy as a necessary precaution, but also because most people returning from Ebola-stricken countries arrive in the United States through Kennedy and Newark Liberty International Airports.

...New York and New Jersey officials say no one coming through the two airports since Ms. Hickox has reported direct contact with Ebola patients.

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Ebola Travel Bans Buy Only Time, Not Safety

BLOOMERG BUSINESS WEEK                                                                                            Nov. 4, 2014
By

...Blocking most travel from Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, where a total of more than 13,000 people have been infected with Ebola since the outbreak began in March, would only modestly reduce how long it takes for the virus to reach new countries, according to mathematical simulations published in the journal Eurosurveillance. For example, stopping 71 percent of travelers from entering other nations in Africa from the three countries in which Ebola is widespread would delay a case from appearing elsewhere on the continent by only 30 days, according to the model. ...


Medical staff wait for passengers arriving from Guinea at the airport in Abidjan on Oct. 20,as Ivory Coast's airline resumed flights to the three west African countries worst-hit by Ebola. Photograph by Issouf Sanogo/AFP via Getty Image

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The whole world relies on this one U.S. company to fly Ebola patients

WASHINGTON POST                          Oct 28, 2014
By Josh Hicks
When it comes to transporting Ebola victims by air, the world relies on just one small U.S. company.


Phoenix Air has been using the isolation system below this aircraft to transport Ebola patients. (EPA/BRANDEN CAMP)

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New York and New Jersey Tighten Ebola Screenings at Airports

NEW YORK TIMES                    Oct. 24, 2014

The announcement comes one day after an American doctor, who had worked in Guinea and returned to New York City earlier in October, tested positive for Ebola and became the first New York patient of the deadly virus.

“A voluntary Ebola quarantine is not enough,” said Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York. “This is too serious a public health situation.”

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Ebola Study Projects Spread of Virus on Overseas Flights

A study projects up to three Ebola-infected people could be on overseas flights each month from the three most-affected African countries. WSJ's Gautam Naik reports. Photo: Getty

CLICK HERE - The Lancet - Assessment of the potential for international dissemination of Ebola virus via commercial air travel during the 2014 west African outbreak

wsj.com - by Gautam Naik - Oct. 20, 2014

Up to three Ebola-infected people could embark on overseas flights every month from the three most-affected African countries, according to a new study that projected travel patterns based on infection rates and recent flight schedules.

The findings, published Monday in the journal Lancet, suggest that Ebola cases could be spread overseas by unwitting travelers from the worst-hit countries—Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

The World Health Organization has estimated that, by early December, there could be as many as 10,000 new cases a week in west Africa.

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Ebola crisis: Worst-hit African nations get key supplies

BBC                                                                                   Oct. 20, 2014

Vital supplies and resources to tackle Ebola are beginning to arrive in the three worst-hit West African countries, Ghana's President John Mahama has said.

Mr Mahama, who heads the regional bloc Ecowas, also told the BBC that treatment centres were being set up in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. But he called for proper co-ordination between agencies to avoid duplication.


Red Cross workers are among those fighting the outbreak in Sierra Leone

Mr Mahama told the BBC that the World Food Programme was airlifting humanitarian aid to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

"Vehicles, motorcycles and other means of transport are going in there. There's more protective clothing being provided," he said.

"But there's no need for us to duplicate each other and have more treatment centres when we do not have volunteers and health workers to treat the people in the treatment centres.

Read full story

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DHS requires West Africa travelers to arrive at five airports

USA TODAY                                                                                     Oct. 21, 2914By Bart Jansen

WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security announced Tuesday that all travelers from Ebola outbreak countries in West Africa will be funneled through one of five U.S. airports with enhanced screening starting Wednesday.

                                                                       (Photo: Melissa Maraj, AP)

Customs and Border Protection within the department began enhanced screening — checking the traveler's temperature and asking about possible exposure to Ebola — at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport on Oct. 11.

Enhanced screening for travelers from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea was expanded Oct. 16 to Washington's Dulles, Chicago's O'Hare, New Jersey's Newark and Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson international airports.

Those airports were supposed to screen 94% of the average 150 people per day arriving from the three countries. But lawmakers from other states asked for enhanced screening at their airports, too.

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CDC's Frieden: U.S. not ruling out Ebola travel ban

UPDATE

CONGRESSIONAL HEARING ON EBOLA: STORIES  AND LINK TO TESTIMONY BEFORE A HOUSE  ENERGY AND COMMERCE SUBCOMMITTEE   (scroll down)

By Will Duham

(Reuters) - Congressional lawmakers criticized the government's response to Ebola in the United States on Thursday as some called, at a congressional hearing probing efforts to contain the virus, for a ban on travel from epidemic-stricken West Africa.

Federal Aviation Administration chief Michael Huerta told reporters separately that the United States is assessing whether to issue a travel ban "on a day-to-day basis" but that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had determined that a ban would not address the challenges posed by Ebola.

...Several schools in Ohio and Texas were closed after concerns that a nurse with Ebola traveled on a plane with people with ties to the schools.

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