The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention requires airlines to collect contact information for all passengers in Guinea and the Democratic Republic of the Congo amid two separate Ebola outbreaks in African countries.
Starting Thursday, airlines will be required to collect and deliver contact information to CDC for all travelers to the United States who have been to the DRC or Guinea for the past 21 days prior to their arrival in the United States, he reported. CDC Tuesday. On Friday, the CDC announced it would channel travelers from the two countries through six U.S. airports to New York, Chicago, Atlanta, the District of Columbia, Newark and Los Angeles.
The risk of Ebola spreading to the U.S. is “extremely low,” the CDC said last week, but health officials are preparing their public health response protocols to ensure the disease does not enter the country.
“Timely public health monitoring requires that health officials have immediate access to accurate and complete contact information for travelers when they arrive in the United States,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a statement. “Any delay in contacting exposed individuals can increase the likelihood of the disease spreading.”
Airlines will need to collect names, addresses of travelers in the United States, primary contact phone numbers, secondary or emergency phone numbers, and email addresses, the CDC said in a statement. It is “the minimum amount of information needed to reliably locate travelers,” the CDC added.
The information provided by travelers will be “verified by U.S. government officials on arrival to make sure it is accurate and complete,” the CDC said. The agency noted that a February 2020 rule authorized the CDC to impose this requirement on airlines.
“Air travel has the potential to carry people, some of whom may have been exposed to a communicable disease, anywhere in the world in less than 24 hours,” the CDC said. “In certain situations, public health officials may need to keep track of travelers who have arrived from a country where an outbreak is occurring, such as the Ebola outbreaks in the DRC and Guinea.”
The World Health Organization is responding to two Ebola outbreaks, one in the West African nation of Guinea and another in the DRC in Central Africa. Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO health emergency program, said Monday that 13 cases of Ebola have been confirmed in Guinea, with four more as probable.
Cases in Guinea appear to be currently contained in the remote regions of N’Zerekore and Gueckedou in southern Guinea, Ryan said. He added that 99% of about 500 identified people who have been exposed to the virus are being followed. He added that more than 1,100 people have been immunized against Ebola since it reappeared last month.
Separately, Ryan said eight cases have been confirmed in the DRC, including four deaths. No new cases have been reported since Feb. 22, Ryan said.
Unlike the highly infectious coronavirus, which can spread to asymptomatic people, Ebola is believed to spread primarily to people who are already visibly ill. The virus spreads through direct contact with the blood or body fluids of people who are sick or have died from the disease, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Ebola has an average mortality rate of 50%, although it can vary depending on the outbreak, according to the WHO.
The resurgence of Ebola in Guinea and the DRC has global health specialists especially concerned that these countries are experiencing the two worst Ebola outbreaks in history. The outbreak in the DRC, which was declared over in June, lasted almost two years. When it ended, there were 3,481 cases in total and 2,299 deaths, according to the WHO.
According to the WHO, the famous Ebola outbreak in West Africa began in Guinea in 2014 before spreading across land borders to Sierra Leone and Liberia. At the end of 2016, there were more than 28,000 cases, including more than 11,000 deaths, according to the WHO.
During the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the U.S. CDC confirmed 11 cases of Ebola in the United States, mostly among medical workers who had traveled to Africa to help with the response.