The CDC announced a 21-day monitoring period for anyone returning to the U.S. from Ebola-stricken African nations.
Director
of the agency, Tom Frieden, said on Wednesday that from next Monday,
October 27, the measures will be used in six states to give 'additional
new safety'.
Passengers arriving from Liberia, Sierra Leone and
Guinea will be asked for emails, phone numbers and addresses, as well as
family or friend contacts, to make sure no one goes unnoticed.
Travelers
will be given a kit from the CDC which contains information cards,
showing the symptoms, and a thermometer to take their own temperatures.
Fending
off demands to ban travel from Ebola-stricken West Africa, the Obama
administration instead tightened the nation's defenses against Ebola by
requiring that all arrivals from the disease-ravaged zone pass through
one of five U.S. airports.
The move responds to pressure from
some Congress members and the public to impose a travel ban on the three
countries at the heart of the Ebola outbreak, which has killed over
4,500 people, mostly in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, since it
emerged 10 months ago.
Beginning on Wednesday, people whose trips
began in Guinea, Liberia or Sierra Leone must fly into one of the five
U.S. airports performing fever checks for Ebola, the Homeland Security
Department said.
Credit: Associated Press
Photo Crefit: Reuters
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