DEVELOPMENTS
— President Barack Obama said Monday that some foreign countries are not doing enough to confront the Ebola crisis in West Africa. He said the international community has not been as aggressive as it needs to be to help contain what he’s calling a top national security issue for the United States. Obama says he intends to put pressure on other foreign heads of state to “make sure that they are doing everything that they can to join us in this effort.”
— Saudi Arabia’s acting health minister said Monday that this year’s hajj has been free of Ebola and other contagious diseases because of measures taken by the kingdom to protect more than 2 million pilgrims who took part in the annual Islamic pilgrimage. Acting Health Minister Adel Faqih told reporters the kingdom deployed thousands of health workers during the hajj and performed data screening on pilgrims upon arrival to the kingdom as a precaution.
News services
Raising fresh concern around the world Monday, a nurse in Spain became the first person known to catch Ebola outside the outbreak zone in West Africa. President Barack Obama said the U.S. government was considering ordering more careful screening of airline passengers arriving from the region.
In dealing with potential Ebola cases, Obama said, “we don’t have a lot of margin for error.”
The stricken nurse in Spain had been part of a team that treated two missionaries flown home after becoming infected with Ebola in West Africa. The nurse’s only symptom was a fever, but the infection was confirmed by two tests, Spanish health officials said. She was being treated in isolation, while authorities drew up a list of people she had had contact with.
The White House continued to rule out any blanket ban on travel from West Africa. People leaving the outbreak zone are checked for fevers before they’re allowed to board airplanes, but the disease’s incubation period is 21 days, and symptoms could arise later.
Airline crews and border agents already watch for obviously sick passengers, and in a high-level meeting at the White House, officials discussed potential options for screening passengers when they arrive in the U.S. as well.
Obama said the U.S. will be “working on protocols to do additional passenger screening both at the source and here in the United States.” He did not outline any details or offer a timeline for when new measures might begin.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry urged the U.S. government to begin screening air passengers arriving from Ebola-affected nations, including taking their temperatures.
Medical workers in Texas were among Americans waiting to find out whether they had been infected by Thomas Duncan, a critically ill Liberian man being treated for Ebola in Dallas. Thomas began receiving an experimental drug Monday.
The fifth American flown back to the United States for treatment, Ashoka Mukpo, 33, was able to walk off the plane Monday before being loaded on a stretcher and taken by ambulance to the Nebraska Medical Center, and his father said his symptoms of fever and nausea appeared mild.
The Obama administration maintains that the best way to protect Americans is to end the outbreak in Africa. To that end, the U.S. military was working Monday on the first of 17 promised medical centers in Liberia and training up to 4,000 soldiers this week to help with the Ebola crisis.
The U.S. is equipped to stop any further cases that reach this country, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.
“The tragedy of this situation is that Ebola is rapidly spreading among populations in West Africa who don’t have that kind of medical infrastructure,” Earnest said.
About 350 U.S. troops are already in Liberia, the Pentagon said, to begin building a 25-bed field hospital for infected medical workers.
The virus has taken an especially devastating toll on health care workers, sickening or killing more than 370 in the hardest-hit countries of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone — places that already were short on doctors and nurses before Ebola.
Federal health officials say a travel ban could make the desperate situation worse in the afflicted countries, and White House spokesman Earnest said it was not currently under consideration.
Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly said he saw no need for additional screening at airports and noted that airlines already carefully clean planes.
Airlines have dealt with previous epidemics, such as the 2003 outbreak in Asia of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome.
“Now it’s Ebola,” Kelly said. “We are always on the alert for any kind of infectious disease.”
General airport fever checks aren’t very effective, especially as flu season begins, said Lawrence Gostin, a prominent health law professor at Georgetown University. But checking and questioning only passengers from the outbreak zone “might reassure the public. I don’t think there would be a big downside.”
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