Changes are in the works for how health officials respond to disease epidemics and handle potentially contagious travelers, two years after the U.S. government screened and monitored 38,000 passengers from African countries flying to hub airports during a major outbreak of the Ebola Virus.
The Department of Health and Human Services is updating procedures with takeaways from 2014.
The
would:
- require airline pilots flying domestically to report passenger deaths and illnesses as they do for international flights to help quickly detect disease spread.
- the CDC could ban animals from entering the country if they have a risk of carrying communicable diseases.
- new benefits for quarantined passengers including a requirement for the government to explain quarantine and isolation orders. A senior official would have to put in writing why a potentially infected person has been denied travel rights.
- health officials could monitor quarantined people by phone, email and text messages instead of relying on daily in-person checkups.
HHS is asking for the public to weigh in before finalizing the disease response rules in the fall.
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