U.S. Routes Travelers From Ebola-Hit Countries Through Dulles Airport

The United States is routing citizens, residents and foreign travelers who recently visited Congo, Uganda or South Sudan through a single airport, Washington Dulles International, for enhanced Ebola screening, according to CBS News and Newsweek. The State Department said Thursday that U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents who were in those countries in the previous 21 days must fly only into Dulles, where the CDC and Customs and Border Protection will conduct the screenings with additional personnel, Newsweek reported. On Wednesday the Department of Homeland Security applied the same rule to all U.S.-bound flights carrying foreign travelers who had been in those countries, CBS News reported.

The rules build on an earlier entry ban. On May 18, the CDC announced that people without U.S. passports who had been in Congo, Uganda or South Sudan in the previous three weeks would be barred from entering the country, CBS News reported. CBS noted it is unclear how the later DHS and State Department rules interact with that order. Newsweek described the earlier restriction as a 30-day ban.

The outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo strain of the virus, for which CBS News reported no approved vaccine or treatment exists; Newsweek likewise said there is no vaccine. The World Health Organization said Wednesday there were at least 600 suspected cases and 139 suspected deaths across Congo and Uganda, of which 51 were confirmed, all in Congo’s Ituri and North Kivu provinces, Al Jazeera reported. Uganda had confirmed two cases in Kampala, including one death, in people who had traveled from Congo, according to Al Jazeera. The WHO declared an international public health emergency but not a pandemic emergency, and Al Jazeera reported Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’s assessment of the risk as high nationally and regionally and low globally. The Department of Homeland Security says Bundibugyo outbreaks kill about 30 percent of those infected, Newsweek reported.

On Wednesday, an Air France flight from Paris to Detroit was diverted to Montreal after U.S. officials determined that a passenger from Congo should not have boarded, CBS News and Newsweek reported. Customs and Border Protection said the passenger boarded in error. A Canadian quarantine officer found the person had no symptoms, and the passenger was placed on a flight back to Paris, and Newsweek reported the plane continued to Detroit. Air France said the diversion was made at U.S. authorities’ request and that there was no medical emergency, CBS News reported.

Public health experts offered different readings. CBS News’ Dr. Celine Gounder said Ebola spreads only from people with symptoms, so sitting near an asymptomatic traveler poses no risk, and that funneling arrivals to one airport resembles the approach used during the 2013-2016 West Africa outbreak, when three airports were designated. She said the aim is screening rather than blocking travel entirely, CBS News reported. Jane Halton of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations told Newsweek that confirmed cases may be “the top of the iceberg.” Ugandan officials criticized the U.S. restrictions as an overreaction, Newsweek reported.

The CDC said Wednesday there were no confirmed cases in the United States and that the “overall risk to the American public and travelers remains low,” Newsweek reported. Newsweek said the United States has committed $23 million to the response and pledged support for up to 50 clinics in Congo and Uganda, compared with roughly $600 million during the 2018-2020 outbreak, and that health workers say the response is hampered by shortages of basic supplies. The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority said it expects no “significant impacts on airport customers,” Newsweek reported.