Health officials from the US have announced on Friday, Sept. 18 that the country will halt Ebola screening for travelers coming in from Liberia starting Monday, Sept 21.
As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Department of Homeland Security will stop screening individuals from Liberia at the five enhanced entry evaluation airports, these travelers will soon be free to enter the country at any airport. However, the same monitoring and examination protocols will still be implemented among those flying from Sierra Leone and Guinea.
The screening in the points of entry will not be altered for those travelling to the US from other Western African Countries and these include individuals, who although coming from Liberia, have also travelled from these two countries in the past 21 days.
The evaluation and monitoring protocols for individuals traveling from the said nations started in October 2014, when the Ebola outbreak reached its worst state in the history of the world.
Now, the epidemic has abated and according to health authorities from all around the globe, the virus that causes the disease has stop expanding. As per records, the new Ebola outbreak has affected about 28,000 individuals and resulted in more than 11,000 mortalities.
Although there has been a change in the screening protocols for Ebola in the US, the CDC continues to remind medical professionals and care providers to follow the set rules, which encompass evaluation of exposure details and implementing the advised guidelines from those who will be found to exhibit clinical manifestations of Ebola.
On Sept. 3, the World Health Organization (WHO) has announced Liberia to be free of Ebola spread. The last confirmed case of the disease was tested for the second time on July 22, 2015 and exhibited negative results. At the moment, the country will be under an intense surveillance phase, which will run for 90 days.
"Under the leadership of the Liberia Government authorities, an effective response was rapidly initiated to contain the new outbreak," wrote WHO officials in a news release. Community members actively participated in the contact tracing and social mobilization interventions. Aside from that, international organizations also extended their support to the government for food provision, labor force and equipment supplies, among many others.
Photo: David Prasad | Flickr
