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- Travelers from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Guinea will be subject to additional screening due to Ebola issues.
- According to the CDC, these travelers will be directed to six US airports.
- There, airlines will collect and send their information to local health departments for tracking.
- Visit Insider’s Business section for more stories.
The United States will begin tracking people arriving from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Guinea, two countries facing Ebola outbreaks.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday that the US government “will institute public health measures” for travelers from the two countries “out of caution” as the threat of outbreaks in the United States remains low.
“Starting next week, the US government will route travelers from the DRC and Guinea to six US airports,” the agency said in a statement. “Airlines will collect and report passenger information to CDC for public health follow-up and response for all passengers boarding a flight to the United States who were in the DRC or Guinea within the 21 days. previous ones. “
The information will be shared with local health services for monitoring and surveillance.
Earlier this month, Guinea declared its first Ebola outbreak since 2016.
As Insider’s Morgan McFall-Johnson previously reported, Ebola can lead to fever, body aches and fatigue. It has a death rate of around 50%. At least three people have died in Guinea from Ebola since the outbreak was detected in February.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo also reported another outbreak earlier this month, according to the World Health Organization.
The risk of Ebola becoming an epidemic in the United States is “extremely low,” the CDC said.
But the agency still recommends that the United States take precautions, especially as the country battles new variants of the coronavirus.
Researchers have found at least seven new variants in the United States, each of which may be more contagious than the original strain.
It has been almost a year since the WHO declared the coronavirus a pandemic. Since then, more than 28 million people in the United States have contracted the virus, according to the latest data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Of that total, more than 500,000 Americans have died.
In 2016, more than 11,000 people died from a two-year Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
The Guinean government is taking action to end the resurgence before it spreads further. A new Ebola treatment center is being built and an Ebola vaccine is being expelled, Insider’s McFall-Johnson reported.
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