Saturday 11 October 2014

Ebola screening starting in New York City

A Nigerian port health official uses a no-touch thermometer at an airport in Lagos. Airline passengers arriving from three West African countries will face similar temperature checks at five U.S. airports.

A stepped-up screening program to check the temperatures of travellers arriving from West Africa is starting at New York's Kennedy International Airport, part of an effort to stop the spread of Ebola.
The effort to screen travellers from the three West African countries most affected by Ebola starts Saturday at Kennedy and will be expanded over the next week to Newark Liberty, Washington Dulles, Chicago O'Hare and Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta.
Customs officials say about 150 people travel daily from or through Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea to the United States, and nearly 95 per cent of them land first at one of the five airports.
There are no direct flights to the U.S. from the three countries, but Homeland Security officials said last week they can track passengers back to where their trips began, even if they make several stops. Airlines from Morocco, France and Belgium are still flying in and out of West Africa.

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