People departing West African countries have been receiving screening for symptoms that would point to the possibility of infectious disease. Now the US government is instituting an additional layer of screening of people landing at 5 US airports in an effort to prevent the spread of the ebola epidemic.
Federal Official: Fever Screening at 5 US Airports
The government plans to begin taking the temperatures of travelers from West Africa arriving at five U.S. airports as part of a stepped-up response to the Ebola epidemic.
At the White House, spokesman Josh Earnest said an additional layer of screening would begin at New York's JFK International and the international airports in Newark, Washington Dulles, Chicago and Atlanta. He said the new steps would include taking temperatures and would begin Saturday at JFK.
Earnest said the five airports cover the destinations of 94 percent of the people who travel to the U.S. from the three heavily hit countries in West Africa — Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. He estimated that about 150 people would be checked a day under the new procedures.
They are also passing out information sheets to all people arriving from countries with established ebola cases.