US to screen travellers for Ebola symptoms
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The United States will screen passengers arriving at five airports from three West African countries for symptoms of the Ebola virus, officials said Wednesday as the first patient to be diagnosed with the illness outside Africa died at a US hospital.
Passengers who come from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone will have their temperatures taken and be checked for signs of illness, complete a health questionnaire and provide authorities with contact information, US officials said.
Plans to begin screening were announced as part of an effort to stop the spread of the epidemic that the World Health Organisation says has infected more than 8,000 people and killed 3,857.
The additional screening will begin Saturday at John F Kennedy International Airport in New York, and next week at Newark International Airport in New Jersey, Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, Washington Dulles International Airport and Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta.
About 94 per cent of travellers from affected countries heading to the US travel through those hubs.
The move will only affect about 150 passengers per day, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.
The announcement came after the first US Ebola death. Thomas Eric Duncan died in a US hospital in Texas, the hospital said.
The 42-year-old was infected with the virus in Liberia, but did not begin to show symptoms of the disease until a few days after his arrival in Texas on September 20.
Another patient being treated in the US, freelance photographer Ashoka Mukpo, who fell ill last week in West Africa and was flown to the US for treatment, is scheduled to receive a blood transfusion from Ebola survivor, Dr Kent Brantly, on Wednesday the Nebraska Medical Center said.
Mukpo also is being treated with the experimental drug brincidofovir.
Meanwhile, the Spanish government was forced to admit that improper handling of an Ebola case may have caused the infection of a nurse in Madrid, according to an EU spokesman.
Health officials from EU member states met in Brussels and discussed steps to be taken in the wake of the Spanish case - the first transmission on European soil.
"Spain confirmed that it is not clear at this stage how infection occurred, but hypotheses include possibly relaxation of some procedures, including manipulation of the corpse or disposal of medical waste," said Frederic Vincent, a spokesman for EU Health Commissioner Tonio Borg.
A doctor treating the nurse said the infection could have occurred when she took off her protective suit. The nurse acknowledged she touched her face with a glove.
EU countries agreed that travellers returning from West African Ebolahot spots and medical staff need to be better informed so that they can recognise Ebola cases at an early stage, Vincent said.
By the start of the week, eight Ebola patients had been evacuated from Africa to the EU, Vincent said.
Zsuzsanna Jakab, WHO regional director for Europe, spoke out on behalf of healthcare workers, saying, "they need to be protected and supported by all means."
Speaking in Copenhagen, Jakab said that while sporadic imported cases in Europe like the one in Spain were unavoidable, an actual spread of the haemorrhagic fever on the continent was highly unlikely because European countries are among the best prepared in the world.
The Spanish nurse is being treated at a Madrid hospital after she contracted the virus from one of two ill missionaries who had been flown from West Africa to Spain for treatment. Her condition had improved slightly Wednesday, her doctors said.
Two additional colleagues of the nurse also have been admitted to an isolation ward for observation, sources close to the Hospital CarlosIII said.
In total, the nurse and five other people are now being monitored in the hospital: The woman's husband, three colleagues and a Spaniard who has returned from Nigeria.
In Sierra Leone, one of the countries worst hit by the Ebolaoutbreak, corpses accumulated Wednesday on streets after Ebola burial teams went on strike. Members of burial teams said they were refusing to work until the government paid their salaries. The bodies of people who died of Ebola carry the virus and are highly infectious.
In Liberia, a United Nations staff member has tested positive for Ebola, the UN Secretary General's Special Representative said. The unidentified staff member began to show symptoms on October 5 and is receiving treatment in the capital, Monrovia.
Meanwhile, Britain said it was sending 750 soldiers to Sierra Leone to help in the battle against Ebola. The medical ship RFA Argus will sail to Freetown, the capital. Three military helicopters also will be deployed there.
The first of 100 Marines who are part of a US contingent of troops were due to arrive in Liberia on Thursday, the Pentagon said.
