Screening for Ebola starts at Chicago O'Hare Airport for passengers from specific countries
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Homeland Security are now screening for Ebola at five major American airports, including Chicago O'Hare International Airport.
An outbreak of the Ebola virus in three African countries has been tied to more than 130 deaths, 51 confirmed cases and almost 600 suspected cases. The cases have been confirmed in Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and South Sudan, and there are deaths and suspected cases in those countries as well.
The new CDC airport screening procedures are in place for passengers arriving in the U.S. from those three countries.
Under a 30-day order under the Public Health Act, the CDC will enact enhanced health screening and traveler monitoring for passengers arriving in the U.S. from those three countries. They are also enacting entry restrictions for non-U.S. passport holders if they have been in Uganda, DRC or South Sudan in the previous 21 days.
The CDC will also coordinate with airlines and port-of-entry officials to identify travelers who may have been exposed to the virus, and general enhance health response activities, lab testing capacity, contact tracing and hospital readiness.
O'Hare is one of five U.S. airports that will be conducting enhanced screening. The others are John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and Los Angeles International Airport. Public health officials said these airports see the largest volume of air traffic – as final destinations or as connections – from the areas affected by the Ebola outbreak.
The World Health Organization has declared the outbreak a global health emergency, but insists it is not a "pandemic emergency," emphasizing cases are high in the national and regional levels in the affected countries, but low worldwide.
WHO experts said they believe the outbreak probably began a couple months ago based on the scale of the situation in the DRC, and said it does not meet currently meet the pandemic emergency threshold.
