U.S. to Begin Limited Airport Screening for Ebola

Published: Oct 8, 2014 | Updated: Oct 8, 2014

By John Gever, Managing Editor, MedPage Today

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Airline passengers arriving at five U.S. airports that receive most travelers from West Africa will face screening for Ebola symptoms as soon as this weekend, federal officials said.

JFK International Airport in New York City will be the first to implement the screening, beginning Saturday, according to a joint statement from the CDC and the Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection (CBP) division. Washington-Dulles, Chicago-O'Hare, Atlanta-Hartsfield, and Newark airports will commence screening some time next week.

"After passport review, travelers from Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone will be escorted by CBP to an area of the airport set aside for screening," the statement said. Trained staff will then "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."

Medical personnel will also conduct temperature checks on all such passengers with noncontact thermometers, the agencies said.

Travelers with signs of potential Ebola illness will then be taken to a quarantine station for further evaluation.

Those with no red flags will be given health information on self-monitoring and asked to perform daily temperature checks on themselves and to provide contact information.

In the past year, JFK has received almost half of all travelers from the hot-zone nations of Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, the agencies said. Collectively, the five airports have handled about 94% of passengers from these countries.

CDC and CBP also said they had been working with authorities in the affected African countries to implement exit screening, which is now being implemented on all outbound travelers. The agencies said that 77 individuals had been stopped from boarding aircraft as a result of the screening, although none were later found to have Ebola. Many of those denied boarding actually had malaria.