DEVELOPMENTS
• The mother of Amber Vinson, one of the nurses who contracted Ebola after treating a patient who died of the disease in a Dallas hospital, said Monday that her daughter is “doing OK, just trying to get stronger” at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. Another nurse from the same team who was also infected, Nina Pham, was upgraded to good condition from fair at the National Institutes of Health outside Washington, where she is being treated.
• The Spanish nurse who was the first person known to have contracted the Ebola virus outside Africa was declared to be cleared of the disease Tuesday, after a second test in recent days came back negative, according to officials at the hospital where she has been treated since Oct. 7. María Teresa Romero Ramos was found to be infected after she treated a Spanish missionary at the Carlos III hospital in Madrid who had returned from West Africa with the disease; he died Sept. 25. Romero and officials at the hospital have suggested that she may have become infected by touching her face with a glove while removing protective gear.
• An American video journalist with Ebola said in Twitter comments that he feels lucky to be recovering from the deadly virus. Ashoka Mukpo of Providence, R.I., has been treated at the Nebraska Medical Center since Oct. 6, and doctors have said he could be released by the end of the week if tests confirm he is free of the virus.
— From news services
“We are announcing travel restrictions in the form of additional screening and protective measures at our ports of entry for travelers from the three West African Ebola-affected countries,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said in a news release.
The enhanced screenings for travelers from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea go into effect Wednesday. They will have to fly into one of five U.S. international airports where screening for body temperature already is in place: New York’s JFK, Newark, N.J., Washington’s Dulles, Atlanta and Chicago’s O’Hare.
The new policy comes just in time for many critics.
“Putting in place travel restrictions and additional screening measures at our airports is a common-sense proposal, and I am pleased to see DHS make this announcement,” said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. He said, however, that the administration should also suspend all visas from the three affected countries — something it has so far declined to do despite calls by lawmakers from both parties, including Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina, for a travel ban from West Africa.
“They would seek to evade detection,” said White House spokesman Josh Earnest “They would conceal the true nature of their travel history in an attempt to enter the country.”
He added: “The vastly preferable system to have in place would be for these individuals to be subjected to intensive screening before they ever board an aircraft, and then to be subjected to an additional round of screening upon arrival in the United States.”
Travel industry officials, who oppose a ban, were pleased with the Department of Homeland Security’s approach.
“We believe this announcement will achieve the aim of keeping sick people out of the U.S., without abandoning whole countries in their efforts to fight Ebola or driving travelers from those countries ‘underground’ in attempts to reach the U.S.,” Roger Dow, the U.S. Travel Association’s president and chief executive officer, said in a statement.
There are no direct flights to the United States from the three West African countries, but federal officials want to be sure to intercept anyone who has been on a flight originating there.
While the five airports receive 94 percent of travelers from the three countries, the directive that all travelers be processed through them is designed to ensure that all entrants to the U.S. from Ebola-affected areas are screened.
Thomas Eric Duncan, the first Ebola patient in the United States to die from the disease, entered the country through Dallas from Brussels after an originating flight in Liberia.
Since screening started Oct. 11 at JFK airport, 562 people have been checked at the five airports, according to Homeland Security. Of those, four who arrived at Dulles were taken to a local hospital. No cases of Ebola have been discovered.
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The study recommends that travelers be screened at their points of departure, something that is being done at the three West African countries’ airports. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization helped set up the protocols, which include a questionnaire, followed in some cases by a temperature test. An elevated temperature is a sign of the disease, which has an incubation period of up to 21 days.
As the U.S. closed a gap in its Ebola screening, an Ebola-free African country said it would begin checking visiting Americans for the disease.
Rwanda’s health minister said Tuesday that travelers who have been in the United States or Spain — the two countries outside of West Africa that have seen transmission during the Ebola outbreak — will be checked upon arrival and must report on their health during their stay.
No Ebola cases have been reported in Rwanda. The U.S. Embassy there said the country is banning visitors who have recently traveled to Guinea, Liberia, or Sierra Leone, the three countries at the heart of the outbreak, as well as nearby Senegal, which had a single case
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