Ebola airport screening starts in New York City
Screening to be expanded over the week to four other U.S. cities
A stepped-up screening program to check the temperatures of travellers arriving from West Africa is starting at New York's Kennedy International Airport, part of an effort to stop the spread of Ebola.
The effort to screen travellers from the three West African countries most affected by Ebola starts Saturday at Kennedy and will be expanded over the next week to Newark Liberty, Washington Dulles, Chicago O'Hare and Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta.
Customs officials say about 150 people travel daily from or through Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea to the United States, and nearly 95 per cent of them land first at one of the five airports.
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There are no direct flights to the U.S. from the three countries, but Homeland Security officials said last week they can track passengers back to where their trips began, even if they make several stops. Airlines from Morocco, France and Belgium are still flying in and out of West Africa.
U.S. President Barack Obama said Wednesday that the new screening measures support protections already in place. Border Patrol agents already look for people who are obviously ill, as do flight crews, and passengers departing from West Africa are being screened.
Public health workers at Kennedy Airport will use no-touch thermometers to take the temperatures of the travellers from the three Ebola-ravaged countries; those who have a fever will be interviewed to determine whether they may have had contact with someone infected with Ebola. There are quarantine areas at each of the five airports that can be used if necessary.
Health officials expect false alarms
Health officials expect false alarms from travellers who have fever from other illnesses. Ebola isn't contagious until symptoms begin, and it spreads through direct contact with the bodily fluids of patients.
The extra screening at U.S. airports probably wouldn't have identified Thomas Eric Duncan when he arrived from Liberia last month because he had no symptoms while travelling. Duncan, the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S., died Wednesday in Dallas.
In the state of New Jersey, officials issued a mandatory quarantine order for members of an NBC television crew that was exposed to a cameraman with Ebola after they say a voluntary 21-day isolation agreement was violated.
The order went into effect Friday night.
Officials with the state Health Department told The Associated Press the crew remains symptom-free and there is no reason for concern of exposure to the deadly virus to the community.
Citing privacy concerns, department officials wouldn't give further details, including who violated the voluntary agreement and how the state learned of the violation.
The NBC crew included medical correspondent Nancy Snyderman, who lives in New Jersey. She was working with Ashoka Mukpo, a cameraman who was infected with the disease in West Africa. Mukpo is being treated at a hospital in Omaha, Nebraska.
An NBC representative didn't immediately respond to a message late Friday from the AP seeking comment.