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 Restrictions on passengers whose trips originated in Liberia, Sierra
Leone or Guinea were announced by the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security and due to go into effect on Wednesday. The precautions
stop well short of the travel ban sought by some U.S. lawmakers to
prevent more Ebola cases in the United States.
Affected travelers will have their temperatures checked for signs of
a fever that may indicate Ebola infection, among other protocols, at
New York's John F. Kennedy, New Jersey's Newark, Washington Dulles,
Atlanta, and Chicago's O'Hare international airports, officials
said.
"We are working closely with the airlines to implement these
restrictions with minimal travel disruption," Homeland Security
Secretary Jeh Johnson said in a statement. "If not already handled
by the airlines, the few impacted travelers should contact the
airlines for rebooking, as needed."
Johnson said those airports account for about 94 percent of
travelers flying to the United States from the three countries,
noting that there are no direct, nonstop commercial flights from
Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea to the United States.
"We currently have in place measures to identify and screen anyone
at all land, sea and air ports of entry into the United States who
we have reason to believe has been present in Liberia, Sierra Leone
or Guinea in the preceding 21 days," Johnson said.
Washington-based trade group Airlines for America, or A4A, noted
that under 150 people per day travel to the United States from those
three countries and about 6 percent of them, some nine people daily,
have been arriving at airports other than the five airports with
enhanced Ebola screening.
The group's member airlines are "cooperating fully" with the U.S.
Customs and Border Protection agency to reroute that 6 percent of
travelers to the five designated airports, A4A spokeswoman Jean
Medina said.
The subject of travel measures may come up in White House
discussions on Wednesday when President Barack Obama and his senior
advisers meet for the first time with his newly appointed Ebola
"czar," Ron Klain.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters Obama is "not
philosophically opposed to a travel ban" on West Africa, and remains
"open to it" if the scientists and public health experts advising
him say it would help protect Americans. Earnest said those advising
the president currently oppose such a ban.
RACE FOR A DRUG
In a development on the medical front on Tuesday, the Canadian
company Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corp said it has begun limited
manufacturing of an Ebola drug targeting the strain of the virus
causing the epidemic.
Tekmira said the new drug would be available by December but did not
specify how many doses it was making or whether it was intended as
treatment for infected patients or a vaccine. It was also not made
clear when the drug might undergo human clinical trials to test its
efficacy and safety.
Initial clinical trials of Ebola vaccines from GlaxoSmithKline and
NewLink Genetics are under way, according to the World Health
Organization.
The experimental treatment ZMapp, jointly developed by the Scripps
Research Institute and Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc, both of San
Diego, was provided to two American medical workers who recovered
after contracting Ebola in Liberia, and to at least one Spanish
priest who died.
There are no U.S. government-approved vaccines, medications or
dietary supplements to prevent or treat Ebola, which is spread
through direct contact with bodily fluids and tissue but is not
airborne.
The worst Ebola outbreak on record has killed more than 4,500
people, most of them in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. Only three
Ebola cases have been diagnosed in the United States: Liberian
Thomas Eric Duncan, who died on Oct. 8 at Texas Health Presbyterian
Hospital in Dallas, and two nurses who treated him.
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On Tuesday, the U.S. National Institutes of Health outside
Washington, D.C., upgraded the medical condition of one of the
nurses, Nina Pham, to good from fair. She entered a special NIH
facility in Bethesda, Maryland, for treatment last Thursday.
The other nurse, Amber Vinson, is being treated at Emory University
Hospital in Atlanta. Vinson's mother, Debra Berry, told ABC's "Good
Morning America" program her daughter is weak but recovering.
NBC freelance cameraman Ashoka Mukpo, who contracted Ebola while
working in West Africa, is free of the virus and will leave the
Nebraska Medical Center on Wednesday, the hospital said. Mukpo
arrived in the United States on Oct. 6 for treatment.
He is the second patient to be successfully treated for Ebola at the
Nebraska Medical Center, the hospital said on Tuesday, and the fifth
treated in the United States to fully recover.
“Recovering from Ebola is a truly humbling feeling,” Mukpo said in a
statement. “Too many are not as fortunate and lucky as I've been.
I'm very happy to be alive.”
“I was around a lot of sick people the week before I got sick,” said
Mukpo, the first U.S. journalist known to have contracted Ebola. “I
thought I was keeping a good distance and wish I knew exactly what
went wrong.”
SUPPORT FOR TRAVEL BAN
A Reuters/Ipsos online poll released on Tuesday showed that nearly
three-fourths of 1,602 Americans surveyed favored a U.S. ban on
civilian air travel in and out of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
In Washington, some lawmakers welcomed the government's new steps
while others said more needed to be done.
Democratic U.S. Senator Charles Schumer of New York called the
Department of Homeland Security move "a good and effective step
toward tightening the net and further protecting our citizens."
Republican Representative Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, who heads the
House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, said Obama needs to
impose a travel ban.
“President Obama has a real solution at his disposal under current
law and can use it at any time to temporarily ban foreign nationals
from entering the United States from Ebola-ravaged countries,"
Goodlatte said.
Airlines for America official Vaughn Jennings said the group opposes
a travel ban.
On Tuesday, the Dominican Republic became the latest country to
impose a travel ban on foreigners who have visited Ebola-affected
countries in the previous 30 days.
In Texas, 60 people have been removed from watch lists after showing
no Ebola symptoms in 21 days of monitoring, with 112 more people
still being monitored for possible exposure, federal health
officials said.
(Additional reporting by Gabriel Debenedetti and Susan Heavey in
Washington, Sharon Begley and Michele Gershberg in New York, Jon
Herskovitz in Dallas, Manuel Jimenez in Santo Domingo, Domican
Republic; Writing by Will Dunham, Steve Gorman; Editing by Jonathan
Oatis, Toni Reinhold and Lisa Shumaker)
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