Pennsylvania to Monitor Travelers From Ebola-Stricken Areas

Pennsylvania health officials said Wednesday they will have protocols in place within days for a new federal program that asks travelers from Ebola-stricken West Africa to monitor themselves for symptoms of the deadly virus.

The state is among the first six in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's enhanced monitoring program, which begins Monday. The others are New York, Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey and Georgia.

Travelers from Liberia, Sierra Leone and New Guinea — including aid workers, federal health employees and journalists — will be given information cards and a thermometer to measure their body temperatures twice a day for the virus' three-week incubation period.

The CDC said state and local health departments will be left to determine how people in the monitoring program report their results each day — most likely in person, by phone or video chat or through employers.

Pennsylvania airports have no direct flights from the three African countries, and the new program will rely heavily on travelers' participation and the ability for public health officials to track them down if the daily reporting practice is interrupted.

Aimee Tysarczyk, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of Health, said the state's participation in the program is not cause for alarm. She said the precautionary monitoring program grew out of lessons learned from the botched handling of a deadly Ebola case in Texas and will give public health officials needed information to quickly contain a suspected infection.

"People need to continue going about their normal business and feel comfortable living their lives," she said.

The flu is a more widespread threat, she added.

Tysarczyk said the state will use travel records to determine which passengers should be monitored. She said the department also is consulting with airports, the Transportation Security Administration, health and hospital systems and the five other states in the program. Health officials are coordinating with county and local health departments on collecting the information and could lean on them for assistance in certain jurisdictions, she said.

"Collectively, we have no control over what individuals report in terms of their initial travel history," Tysarczyk said. "That's something to be aware of."

The CDC says the six states together represent 70 percent of people arriving from the three African countries.

Tysarczyk said Pennsylvania also was chosen because of its proximity to international airports in New York, New Jersey and the Washington, D.C.-area, where screening is mandatory for passengers traveling from the affected countries.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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