The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention require airlines to collect contact information for all passengers from Guinea and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in two separate Ebola outbreaks in African countries.
As of Thursday, airlines will have to collect and submit contact information to the CDC for all US travelers who have been to the Democratic Republic of the Congo or Guinea in the 21 days prior to their arrival in the US, the CDC said on Tuesday. On Friday, the CDC announced that it would serve travelers from both countries through six US airports in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, the District of Columbia, Newark and Los Angeles.
The risk of Ebola spreading to the US is “extremely small,” the CDC said last week, but health officials are preparing their public health response protocols to ensure the disease does not get into the country.
“For timely public health follow-up care, health officials must have immediate access to accurate and complete contact information for travelers when they arrive in the US,” said CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky in a statement. “Any delay in contacting an exposed person can increase the likelihood of the disease spreading.”
Airlines must collect the names, addresses of travelers in the United States, primary contact phone numbers, secondary or emergency contact phone numbers, and email addresses, the CDC said in a statement. It is “the minimal amount of information needed to reliably locate travelers,” added the CDC.
Information provided by travelers is “checked by US government officials upon arrival to ensure that it is correct and complete,” the CDC said. The agency noted that a February 2020 CDC rule empowered the CDC to impose such a requirement on airlines.
“Air travel has the potential to get people, some of whom may have been exposed to a communicable disease, anywhere in the world in less than 24 hours,” said the CDC. “In certain situations, public health officials may need to track travelers who have arrived from a country where an outbreak is occurring, such as the Ebola outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Guinea.”
The World Health Organization is responding to two Ebola outbreaks, one in the West African nation of Guinea and one in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in central Africa. Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s health emergencies program, said Monday that 13 cases of Ebola have been confirmed in Guinea, four of which were deemed likely.
The cases in Guinea currently appear to be contained in the remote regions of N’Zerekore and Gueckedou in southern Guinea, Ryan said. He added that 99% of around 500 identified people who have been exposed to the virus are being tracked. More than 1,100 people have been vaccinated against Ebola since its recurrence last month, he added.
Separately, Ryan said eight cases, including four deaths, have been confirmed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. No new cases have been reported there since Feb.22, Ryan said.
In contrast to the highly infectious coronavirus, which can be transmitted by people without symptoms, it is believed that Ebola spreads mainly through people who are already visibly ill. The virus spreads through direct contact with the blood or body fluids of people who are sick or who have died of the disease, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Ebola has an average death rate of 50% which, according to the WHO, can vary depending on the outbreak.
The recurrence of Ebola in Guinea and the Democratic Republic of the Congo has hit global health professionals particularly hard, as these countries are home to the two worst Ebola outbreaks in history. The outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, declared in June, lasted nearly two years. At the time of the end, there were a total of 3,481 cases and 2,299 deaths, according to WHO.
The notorious Ebola outbreak in West Africa began in Guinea in 2014 before spreading across land borders to Sierra Leone and Liberia, according to WHO. By the end of 2016, there were more than 28,000 cases, including over 11,000 deaths, according to the WHO.
During the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the US CDC confirmed 11 cases of Ebola in the US, mostly among medical professionals who had traveled to Africa to help with the response.
