The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Wednesday it will begin a 21-day, six-state monitoring program for most travelers from the three Ebola-stricken nations of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.
Tom Frieden, the CDC director who has come under criticism for an initial slow reaction to Ebola in the United States, said the new screening will begin Monday.
“State and local officials will maintain daily contact with all travelers from the three effected countries for the entire 21 days,” Frieden said.
The monitoring will take place in New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey and Georgia and will cover 70 percent of all travelers arriving from countries dealing with Ebola.
The program will later expand to all states, Frieden said.
Those passengers will have to provide detailed contact information to public health officials who will track them daily for 21 days for signs of fever and symptoms of Ebola.
“We are tightening the process,” Frieden said, in an effort to protect the public and healthcare workers from the disease.
The new guidelines include travel restrictions for anyone who is ill or if they have “high risk,” and have had exposure to the virus, but are not sick. Those travelers will be quarantined and will not be able to take public transportation, Frieden said.
“The legal authority resides in the state and local health departments,” Frieden said.
Frieden announced the new restrictions as President Obama’s new “Ebola czar,” Ron Klain, began his first day on the job.
Obama is said to be angry at the initial CDC response, which some say was not aggressive enough in containing the disease.
Liberian Thomas Eric Duncan arrived in Dallas with Ebola last month and was treated by a Dallas hospital before dying on Oct. 8. Two nurses caught Ebola from Duncan and one of the nurses took a round-trip flight in the early stages of her illness.
None of the relatives and friends who had initial contact with Duncan caught Ebola after 21 days of monitoring. And no other healthcare workers who treated Duncan have contracted the disease.
Frieden warned that the outbreak in Africa has not been contained yet and because of that, it will continue to pose a risk to the United States.
“Until it is stopped at the source we can’t make that risk zero here,” he said.
