Is SFO next for enhanced Ebola screening at airports?

Ebola patient Amber Vinson arrives by ambulance at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. Nurse Vinson joins Nina Pham as health workers who have contracted the Ebola virus at Texas Heath Presbyterian Hospital while treating patient Thomas Eric Duncan, who has since died. less Ebola patient Amber Vinson arrives by ambulance at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. Nurse Vinson joins Nina Pham as health workers who have contracted the Ebola virus at Texas Heath Presbyterian Hospital ... more Photo: Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images Photo: Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close Is SFO next for enhanced Ebola screening at airports? 1 / 5 Back to Gallery

Even though Ebola cases in the United States so far are confined to distant parts of the country, California public health officials aren’t taking any chances.

The state has asked the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Homeland Security to add as-yet unidentified international airports in California to the five in other parts of the country already conducting enhanced screening of international travelers.

Gil Chavez, deputy director of the state Department of Public Health, said Wednesday that California’s large population and appeal to world travelers means that some of its international airports “have potential exposure” and should have stepped-up screening of arriving passengers.

“We continue to be concerned about the exposure of California airports, and are working to possibly include some” of the state’s nine international airports, he said.

The state’s request came as anxiety over Ebola continued to rise. Concerns about the adequacy of the nation’s health safeguards grew Wednesday after news that a second nurse at a Dallas hospital treating an Ebola patient was diagnosed with the disease and had taken a domestic commercial flight. Nurses around the country complained of lax protections and protocols for dealing with the disease.

'Much more aggressive’

President Obama vowed that his administration would respond in a “much more aggressive way” to Ebola cases in the United States, and warned that in an age of frequent travel the disease could spread globally if the world doesn’t respond to the “raging epidemic in West Africa.”

California has no confirmed or suspected cases of Ebola, state health officials said Wednesday, but Chavez said “it would not be unusual” for a case to show up in California. He declined to name which of the state’s airports might start enhanced screening, saying the decision would be up to federal officials and would be based on the numbers of international passengers and travel patterns.

That points to San Francisco and Los Angeles international airports, both of which already have CDC quarantine centers that can be used if needed. None of the Bay Area’s three international airports has direct flights to Africa, as do the five already using enhanced screening.

Last week, the CDC and Department of Homeland Security announced stepped-up screening at five of the nation’s busiest international airports: Washington Dulles, Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson, Newark Liberty, Chicago O’Hare and New York JFK.

The enhanced screening is a two-step process, said James Watt, chief of communicable disease control for the California Department of Public Health. CDC and border control officials question passengers about where they’ve traveled and whether they might have been exposed to the virus. If they may have been exposed, they’re taken to another room, where they’re quizzed about their health, have their temperatures taken and are informed of the symptoms and given instructions if they become ill.

In addition to SFO and LAX, California’s other international airports are in Oakland, San Jose, Sacramento, Fresno, Ontario, San Diego and Palm Springs.

Ease growing anxiety

In his most urgent comments on the spread of the disease, Obama also sought to ease growing anxiety in the United States. He said he had directed the CDC to step up its response to new cases.

“We want a rapid response team, a SWAT team essentially, from the CDC to be on the ground as quickly as possible, hopefully within 24 hours, so that they are taking the local hospital step by step through what needs to be done,” he said.

Obama spoke after canceling a political campaign trip to convene a session of top Cabinet officials involved in the Ebola response both in the U.S. and in the West African region, where the disease has been spreading at alarming rates.

Even as he raised the potential for global contagion, Obama also stressed that the danger in the United States remained a long shot.

“Here’s what we know about Ebola. It’s not like the flu. It’s not airborne,” he said.

He made the point of noting that when he visited with health care workers who had attended to Ebola patients at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, he hugged and kissed them without fear of infection. “They followed the protocols, they knew what they were doing,” he said. “I felt perfectly safe doing so.”

Hours before Obama canceled his trip, officials confirmed that a second nurse at a Dallas hospital had tested positive for the virus after treating an Ebola patient who later died. The disclosure raised new fears regarding the exposure by other health care workers. Officials also revealed that the nurse was on a commercial flight the evening before being diagnosed.

The Texas developments added a new domestic element to what has developed into an Ebola crisis in the West African countries of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Obama has been pressing the international community to step up its assistance in combatting the disease.

On Wednesday, Obama spoke by phone with British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President François Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. The White House said Obama stressed that the world must provide the finances and personnel needed “to bend the curve of the epidemic,” and said it amounts to a “human tragedy as well as a threat to international security.”

He made a similar case to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday, the White House said.

Obama spoke after the White House conceded shortcomings in the response to the Liberian Ebola patient’s care.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest noted that CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden had declared that even one health care worker being exposed was unacceptable.

'There were shortcomings’

“So that is an indication that there were shortcomings,” Earnest said.

Asked how the nurse was able to fly to and from Ohio over the weekend, Earnest said, “It’s not clear what protocols were in place and how those protocols were implemented.”

Two Republican lawmakers with influence over transportation policy — Rep. Bill Shuster of Pennsylvania and Sen. John Thune of South Dakota — called for a temporary travel ban from affected West African countries, and asked the Obama administration to spell out plans for how to prevent the spread of the disease through the nation’s transportation network.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee scheduled a hearing on the outbreak Thursday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Michael Cabanatuan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ctuan