In a move aimed at bolstering Ebola prevention efforts, U.S. authorities have announced a temporary ban on entry for green-card holders who have traveled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Uganda, or South Sudan within the past 21 days.
This directive, issued on Friday, marks a significant expansion of existing measures designed to prevent the spread of Ebola within the United States. Previously, travel restrictions were limited to non-U.S. passport holders who had visited these countries, while U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents faced no such limitations.
According to the order, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have concluded that granting the CDC director or another designated official the authority to restrict entry for certain lawful permanent residents is necessary to safeguard public health.
The order highlights that green-card holders might have closer familial and community ties outside the U.S. compared to U.S. citizens and nationals, making the entry restriction less burdensome for them.
In a related development, the CDC announced that U.S. citizens returning from the DRC, Uganda, or South Sudan now have an additional entry point into the U.S. Besides Washington Dulles International Airport, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport will also implement enhanced Ebola screening procedures.
The agency cited “resource constraints” in managing quarantinable diseases as a concern. Currently, 18 individuals are in a specialized quarantine unit at the University of Nebraska, having been released from the MV Hondius cruise ship, which had been affected by hantavirus.
“Containing quarantinable communicable diseases on US soil is highly resource-intensive, requiring specialized and isolated facilities with limited capacity,” it added.
In a separate statement, the CDC said that “applying this authority to lawful permanent residents for a limited period of time provides a balance between protecting public health and managing emergency response resources”.
In remarks last week, Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, said: “Our No 1 objective on Ebola … has to be we can’t have it affect the United States. We can’t have Ebola cases coming here.”
The entry ban on green-card holders coming from the African region is for an initial 30 days.
The World Health Organization raised the risk of the rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola turning into a national outbreak in the DRC to “very high”. It declared the outbreak in the DRC and Uganda an emergency of international concern.
The WHO says 82 cases have been confirmed so far in the DRC, with seven confirmed deaths, 177 suspected deaths and almost 750 suspected cases linked to the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola.
On Saturday, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said that 10 African countries are at risk from the Ebola virus.
“We have 10 countries at risk,” said Jean Kaseya, head of the Africa CDC, listing Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, the Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Zambia.
That came as reports emerged that residents of a town at the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in eastern DRC attacked and burned part of a health center where people were being treated for the virus, and 18 people suspected of infection left the facility.
On Thursday, another treatment center in the town of Rwampara was burned down after family members were prohibited from retrieving the body of a local man.
The bodies of those who died of Ebola can be highly contagious and lead to further spread when people prepare them for burial and gather for funerals. The dangerous work of burying suspected victims is being managed whenever possible by authorities.
Authorities in the north-eastern DRC have banned funeral wakes and gatherings of more than 50 people in an effort to curb the spread of the virus.
