New York’s JFK airport on Saturday began screening passengers from the west African countries worst affected by Ebola, in an attempt to halt the international spread of the outbreak that has killed more than 4,000 people.

JFK is the first of five US airports to start enhanced screening of passengers from the countries worst hit by Ebola: checks will begin in the next few days at O’Hare in Chicago and at Newark, Washington DC’s Dulles and Atlanta.

Teams equipped with thermal guns will take the temperatures of travellers from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea and ask them questions about their possible exposure to the virus as they enter the US.

“Already there are 100% of the travelers leaving the three infected countries are being screened on exit. Sometimes multiple times temperatures are checked along that process,” Dr Martin Cetron, director of the division of global migration and quarantine for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said at a Saturday briefing at JFK.

Cetron added: “No matter how many procedures are put into place, we can’t get the risk to zero.”

Even before the authorities start checking passengers for fevers, however, critics questioned whether the screenings would prove effective at stopping travellers infected with the often fatal Ebola virus from entering the country.

The CDC issued guidance on the scanners, calling them “less precise” than other temperature-taking measures, such as traditional mercury thermometers, and acknowledging that their effectiveness can be impacted by ambient temperatures.

Some of the characteristics of the disease itself can also make it difficult to screen. Because the Ebola virus has an incubation period, those infected may not show symptoms for between two and 21 days. Over-the-counter medications may mask such symptoms as a fever, temporarily bringing down a sick traveller’s temperature.

JFK is the entry point for nearly half of the roughly 150 travellers who arrive in the US daily from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea; amounting to around 0.1% of all international daily arrivals to the airport, said a CDC spokesman, Jason McDonald.

Mohamed Dabo, a 22-year-old Indiana man who arrived at JFK on Saturday from Guinea, after a stopover in Paris, said he was surprised by the intensity of the screening.

“I don’t really know what was going on in there but it was kind of crazy,” he said. “I sat down there for two hours.”

Even so, he said he supports the programme. “I would say it’s about human life,” Dabo said. “It’s good that they’re doing it. You make sure nobody else is infected.”

The measures come after Thomas Eric Duncan, the first patient to be given a diagnosis of Ebola outside Africa, died on Wednesday in a Texas hospital. Duncan had travelled to the US from Liberia, and was only diagnosed with the disease once he arrived in Dallas and on his second visit to hospital.

The CDC said the airport screening was just one aspect of an overall strategy to fight the spread of Ebola.

“Because we want to protect the American public, we are taking a tiered approach,” said McDonald.

The latest figures released by the World Health Organisation show the number of deaths attributed to the haemorrhagic fever has risen to 4,033. The vast majority of the fatalities – 4,024 – were in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.



Department of Homeland Security customs and border protection (CBP) officials will conduct the screenings under CDC direction, McDonald said. Using infrared temperature guns, officers will check for high temperatures among passengers whose journeys began or included a stop in one of the three west African countries.

Those with a fever or other symptoms, or possible exposure to Ebola, will be referred to the CDC. Health authorities may then decide to admit a person to a hospital for evaluation, testing and treatment, or to quarantine or isolate the patient under federal law.



Ebola readiness in the US increased dramatically after Duncan was diagnosed in the Dallas area after showing symptoms for two days, but being sent home by an area hospital. Officials at the CDC are still monitoring 48 people, 10 of whom had direct contact with Duncan and 38 who contacted those 10.



In New Jersey, a mandatory quarantine order was issued for a crew that was traveling with an NBC cameraman when he was infected with the disease. The crew was under a 21-day quarantine agreement, but New Jersey health officials said the agreement was broken. Members are the crew are considered at low risk for infection.

In Europe, Britain has introduced enhanced screening for the virus at Heathrow and Gatwick airports and Eurostar rail terminals. A Spanish nursing assistant infected with the virus was reported to be serious but improved. Authorities in Spain are monitoring 13 people who may have come into contact.

In Brazil, a man was placed in total isolation and is under observation until Sunday, after arriving in Brazil from Guinea on 19 September and complaining of a sore throat and cough to local health officials. The man also had an elevated temperature.