Ebola-hit countries ‘must screen all departing travellers’

Authorities in countries affected by the ebola virus should check people departing at international airports, seaports and major border crossings and stop anyone with signs of the virus from travelling, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said yesterday.

The UN health agency reiterated that the risk of getting infected with ebola on an aircraft was small, as infected people are usually too ill to travel, and said that the risk was also very low to travellers in affected countries, namely Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.

There was no need for wider travel or trade restrictions, the WHO said in a statement.

“Affected countries are requested to conduct exit screening of all persons at international airports, seaports and major land crossings, for unexplained febrile illness consistent with potential ebola infection.

“Any person with an illness consistent with EVD (Ebola Virus Disease) should not be allowed to travel unless the travel is part of an appropriate medical evacuation.”

If a traveller has stayed in areas where ebola cases have been reported recently, he or she should seek medical care at the first sign of illness — fever, headache, sore throat, diarrhoea, vomiting, among other symptoms, the WHO said, noting: “Early treatment can improve prognosis.” Countries that do not have ebola cases must strengthen their capacity to detect and contain any cases immediately, the WHO said, but it did not recommend any active screening of arriving passengers.

“It is better if countries do screening on the front-end,” WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl told Reuters.

Earlier, a Nigerian woman who arrived in Abu Dhabi on a transit flight and who may have been infected with the ebola virus died, health officials in the United Arab Emirates said.

A statement carried by the state news agency, WAM said the 35-year-old was travelling from Nigeria to India for treatment of advanced metastatic cancer.

Her health deteriorated while in transit at Abu Dhabi’s main airport and, as medics were trying to resuscitate her, they found signs that suggested a possible ebola virus infection.

The woman’s husband and the five medics who treated her are being isolated pending test results.

An ebola outbreak has killed more than 1,100 people, mostly in the three West African countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, according to WHO figures. Four people have died after contracting the disease in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country.

The ebola virus is typically transmitted through direct person-to-person contact or through contact with bodily secretions from an infected person. The WHO considers the risk to passengers travelling on a flight with an infected person to be “very low”. Abu Dhabi is the capital and largest of seven sheikdoms that make up the United Arab Emirates.

The country has grown into a major long-haul aviation hub.

It is home to Dubai-based Emirates, the Middle East’s largest airline, and Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways.

Emirates earlier this month became the first carrier to halt flights to Guinea because of concerns about the spread of the ebola virus there.