The United States increased its safeguards against Ebola Tuesday, forcing passengers from the three West African countries affected by disease to fly into five major airports with enhanced screening procedures in place.
The tightened rules come after days of rising political pressure to introduce travel bans on passengers coming from affected countries in West Africa. Earlier, some people coming from the Ebola affected countries had been arriving at other airports and missing the checks. However, the new rules stop well short of the travel ban sought by the U.S. lawmakers.
"All passengers arriving in the United States whose travel originates in Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea will be required to fly into one of the five airports that have the enhanced screening and additional resources in place," said Homeland Security secretary Jeh Johnson in a statement.
"We are continually evaluating whether additional restrictions or added screening and precautionary measures are necessary to protect the American people and will act accordingly," he added, reports The Guardian.
The five airports carrying out additional screening and fever checks for Ebola are John F. Kennedy International in New York, O'Hare International in Chicago, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International, Washington Dulles International near Washington, D.C., and Newark Liberty International in Newark, N.J.
The enhanced screening procedures which began Oct.11 at New York's Kennedy airport was expanded to the other four airports last week. A total of 562 air travelers have been checked so far in the five airports and none of the travelers had Ebola.
Though the Republicans have welcomed the move, they opined that it was not enough.
Rep. Tim Murphy (R., Pa.), the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's oversight and investigations subcommittee, asked for an instant ban on all nonessential commercial travel from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
"I am urging we start first from the strongest line of defense and work down, not begin with the weakest line of public health protections and scramble our way up," Murphy said, reports The Wall Street Journal.
