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Should We Ban Flights From Countries With Ebola Outbreaks?

By Vauhini Vara

Early last week, about as soon as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that it had learned that a man in Texas had been infected with the Ebola virus after having travelled in Liberia, people started suggesting that maybe the U.S. should ban people from flying here from West Africa.

Atul Gawande wrote on Friday about the failure of communication at Texas Health Presbyterian , the hospital that treated the patient but discharged him, at first, with a diagnosis of gastroenteritis; he also outlined the well-established procedures that hospitals and public-health workers should use to contain an outbreak. But how can the U.S. keep infected people from arriving in here in the first place?

In this case, it’s hard to see how it could have been prevented. While in Liberia, the man had helped to carry a pregnant woman who was infected with Ebola to a taxi. But when he arrived at the airport in Monrovia, he didn’t have Ebola symptoms—which staffers had been trained to look for—and, when he filled out an airport-screening form, he answered no to questions about whether he had cared for an Ebola patient or touched the body of someone who had died in an area affected by Ebola. (Liberian authorities said that they would prosecute the man, who is Liberian, for lying on the form, but it’s unclear whether he knew the woman had Ebola; the Associated Press reported that “her illness at the time was believed to be pregnancy-related.”)

Those living and working in Ebola-stricken areas have grown to be well aware that it’s difficult to detect infection early on. But some in the U.S. were surprised—and concerned—when they considered the implications for travel: if it’s so difficult to know for sure whether someone has been infected with Ebola, some have argued , shouldn’t the U.S. be able to stop people who have been exposed to Ebola from arriving here on commercial flights? To be safe, what about blocking everyone who has spent time in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea?

Those who have questioned whether the existing controls are strong enough, such as Senator Ted Cruz , the Republican from Texas, have pointed out that several African countries have restricted or shut down air travel to countries with confirmed Ebola cases. Maybe the U.S. should simply stop airlines from traveling to those countries.

The fact is, U.S. airlines don’t fly to the countries with ongoing Ebola outbreaks. Delta used to fly to Monrovia, but stopped in August. Today, only Delta and United offer direct, nonstop service between the U.S. and West Africa, according to Airlines for America, a trade group for U.S. airlines—Delta to Lagos, Accra, and Dakar, and United to Lagos alone. The Ebola patient in Texas first flew from Monrovia to Brussels on a different airline, reportedly Brussels Airlines, then boarded a United flight to Washington, D.C., and another one to Dallas.

Airlines could suspend flights to the West African countries where they do fly, if they choose, but that wouldn’t necessarily keep passengers from Ebola-stricken countries from using other airlines to leave Liberia and later boarding their flights, as the Texas man did. To keep people who have been in West Africa from boarding U.S. carriers would be more difficult; typically, screenings are left to airport and public-health workers, with airlines getting involved only if a passenger is obviously ill and is seen as presenting a danger to crew members or other passengers.

So far, airlines are relying on the C.D.C. and the World Health Organization for guidance on how to respond. Jennifer Dohm, a United spokeswoman, told me in an e-mail, “We have not made any flight changes at this time, but are in regular communication with government agencies and health officials and will follow their recommendations that apply to our operation.” Health officials, in turn, have not recommended travel bans; in fact, the World Health Organization recommends the opposite— “no bans on international travel or trade.”

There are several reasons for this. For one thing, as Gawande points out, travel bans don’t really work: “Even if travel could be reduced by eighty per cent—itself a feat— models predict that new transmissions would be delayed only a few weeks.” For another, they make it even more difficult to address the public-health crisis: “If you try to shut down air travel and sea travel, you risk affecting to a huge extent the economy, people’s livelihoods, and their ability to get around without stopping the virus from traveling,” Gregory Hartl, a W.H.O. spokesman, said , according to the Washington Post . “You can’t ship goods in. Sometimes these goods are basic staples people need to survive.”

Some have protested that the U.S. and its airlines still ought to close themselves off from people travelling from Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea to protect American citizens, whatever the potential enforcement difficulties or the harm to those abroad—if not by banning travel from certain countries altogether then by banning certain passengers from getting on planes. On the Web site of the National Review , Mark Krikorian wrote , “You can hear the objections now: It would be xenophobic, it might stigmatize West Africans, those countries will object to our State Department that they’re being discriminated against.”

These objections, it should be noted, are legitimate. But, on Thursday, Tom Frieden, the director of the C.D.C., offered another line of reasoning. Robert Ray of Al Jazeera America asked him whether the U.S. could require more rigorous screenings, in the U.S., of passengers arriving from West Africa. “Do you think that there should be something put in place for international travelers, specifically people coming in from West Africa, when they land here in the U.S. that perhaps their fever—their temperature should be taken right away because what if, what if, like I said, some desperate person over there knows that they have been exposed and they can afford a plane ticket and they know if they land here in the U.S., they can get that proper care, no matter what?” Ray asked .

In response, Frieden explained that such measures would make it harder to send aid workers into those places because of the difficulty of bringing them home afterward. “They're not going to be able to come out if they go in,” he said. “And because of that, it will enable the disease to spread more widely there and ultimately potentially spread more to other countries in Africa and become more of a risk to us here, so that the best way to protect ourselves is not to try to seal off these countries but to provide the kind of services that are needed so that the disease is contained there and to identify anyone who may come out.” There may be situations in which the U.S. could benefit from keeping out of other countries’ affairs; this, public-health officials seem to agree, is not one of them.

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By Atul Gawande

By The New Yorker

By Richard Brody

By Dhruv Khullar

Should the U.S. Implement Travel Restrictions on Countries Impacted by Ebola?

(AP Photo | Andres Kudacki

People walk by an advertising calling for financial help to fight Ebola in Africa in Madrid, Spain, Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2014. 

In the wake of the first case of diagnosed Ebola in the U.S. and the first confirmed case of the disease contracted outside of Africa in Spain, calls have intensified for increased restrictions on travel to and from stricken nations. While the Obama administration has to date rejected the idea of a travel ban for the affected West African countries, officials recently announced that the federal government would soon begin temperature screenings at key U.S. airports for passengers arriving from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. Screenings were already in place for travelers leaving these nations. The issue of whether to issue an all-out-ban, or at least significantly tighten restrictions, on travel from nations impacted by the crisis has generated fierce debate, sometimes pitting the nation’s health officials and policy experts against high-ranking politicians and elected officials. Ebola is contracted through contact with the bodily fluids – such as vomit, blood or feces – of a person sickened with the virus, and it can take up to three weeks for symptoms to appear. There are few direct flights to the U.S. from West Africa, with travelers from the most affected countries usually connecting elsewhere. Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who was the first individual diagnosed in the U.S., arrived in the country on Sept. 20 after switching planes in Brussels, Belgium. He had been undergoing treatment at a Dallas hospital but died on Wednesday.  Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has spoken out against a travel ban and also questioned the effectiveness of screenings due to the high number of “ false positives .” As Frieden said in an interview last week, “Even if we tried to close the border, it wouldn’t work. People have a right to return. People transiting through could come in. And it would backfire, because by isolating these countries, it’ll make it harder to help them, it will spread more there and we’d be more likely to be exposed here.” But many in Congress see it differently, and the idea of implementing a travel ban, or at least tough restrictions, on Ebola-affected nations has gained currency in the weeks leading to the midterms , particularly in the GOP, though one Democrat, Rep. Alan Grayson of Florida, has gone so far as to say he would  propose legislation banning travel should the Obama administration fail to do so. (Ebola scares have been reported on a handful of flights in the U.S., and 200 airplane cabin cleaners at LaGuardia Airport began a 24-hour strike Wednesday night over health and safety concerns, which include exposure to Ebola.)  A number of Republican presidential hopefuls have also called for new travel curbs , ranging from Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s demand for a halt on flights from the West African nations to Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s call for "enhanced screening procedures" at "all [U.S.] points of entry." Meanwhile, a recent Rasmussen poll found that 58 percent of Americans favored a temporary ban on flights from the stricken countries. So should the U.S. implement travel restrictions on countries impacted by the Ebola crisis? Here’s the Debate Club’s take:

Tags: Ebola , Travel , Africa , United States , Airlines

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U.S. announces travel restrictions over Ebola

The Department of Homeland Security announced new travel restrictions for passengers traveling from Ebola hotspots on Tuesday.

All passengers who have been in Liberia, Sierra Leone, or Guinea will be forced to enter the country through one of the five airports that are already screening passengers for the deadly virus, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said in a statement.

Those airports—New York’s JFK, New Jersey’s Newark, Virginia’s Dulles, Atlanta, and Chicago—give passengers from Ebola hotspots “secondary screening and added protocols, including having their temperature taken” before they are allowed entry, the statement said. The five airports receive 94% of the roughly 100-150 passengers entering from those countries; the change—which is expected to affect the other 6% of passengers traveling from those countries—will shore up the country’s screening, including as many as 279 more passengers a month.  

“We are continually evaluating whether additional restrictions or added screening and precautionary measures are necessary to protect the American people and will act accordingly,” Johnson added. His announcement comes after more than 70 lawmakers called for travel bans.

On Monday afternoon, Florida Senator and likely 2016 hopeful Marco Rubio took it one step further, becoming the first senator to promise to write legislation. He said he will introduce a Senate bill next month when the Senate returns; if passed, it would be applied immediately to Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and any other countries where significant numbers are infected with Ebola. 

According to a letter Chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee Republican Rep. Ed Royce sent to Secretary of State John Kerry, 100 people are applying for visas each day from the countries.

In the House, three Republicans have  vowed  to introduce similar legislation when they are reconvened. 

Experts say a travel ban will hurt containment efforts in the U.S. as travelers lie on screening forms and relief efforts in Africa, but Americans overwhelmingly support the idea of it and many Republicans -- particularly those eyeing 2016 -- and red-state Democrats have jumped on the idea. Officials say stopping the largest-ever-outbreak in West Africa is key and travel bans would hurt relief and humanitarian efforts.

Photo essay: Ebola continues its deadly march

“We must take any and all necessary precautions to contain this virus -- and common sense restrictions on travel from countries now confronting this epidemic is an important step," the Florida Republican said.

The ban would be in place until the Centers for Disease Control declares the Ebola outbreak contained, though “approved” aid workers coming to the U.S. for Ebola training would be allowed to enter the country and Rubio sought to defend his ban from the criticism from officials.

“This ban on issuance of visas does not mean we will be completely cutting off the affected countries from the outside world,” Rubio said in a statement. “We must continue to increase our assistance to those countries as they struggle to contain this outbreak. That is, ultimately, the only way we will be able to stop this outbreak and keep Americans safe from this horrible disease.” 

Related: How Ebola will impact the 2014 elections

More than 4,500 have already died from Ebola in West Africa and estimates predict that number could jump radically in the coming months. On Tuesday, the World Health Organization announced that vaccine development had been sped up and clinical trials were beginning this year. They expect to begin using the vaccine in West Africa in early 2015. 

Dr Kieny: Normal development of a vaccine takes years. Development of #Ebola vaccines has been accelerated — WHO (@WHO) October 21, 2014

Already there have been three cases of Ebola diagnosed in the United States; the first was a Liberian man named Thomas Eric Duncan, who traveled here after being exposed in West Africa. Two of the nurses who treated Duncan before he died earlier this month also contracted the disease, exposing flaws in early precautions. 

On Monday night, the CDC issued strengthened guidelines for healthcare workers treating those with Ebola, including mandating that hospital workers wear two sets of gloves, disposable hoods with full-face shields and masks, NBC News reported. 

There are other cases of the disease that have been brought here after being diagnosed, like NBC News freelancer Ashoka Mukpo, who has been tweeting about his experience, thanking his medical team and remarking on the outbreak abroad. 

Recovering from Ebola is a truly humbling feeling. Too many are not as fortunate and lucky as I've been. I'm very happy to be alive. — ashoka (@unkyoka) October 20, 2014

The Latest on U.S. Travel Restrictions

By Lauren Hard Oct. 19, 2021

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What to Know: U.S. Travel Restrictions

Beginning today, international visitors who are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus can enter the United States by air or across the land borders with Canada and Mexico.

Here’s the latest →

The new policy ends an 18-month ban on nonessential travel from 33 countries, including China, Brazil and European Union members. The ban had affected tourists and those hoping to visit family and friends in the U.S.

The rules reorient the U.S. approach to vetting its visitors during the pandemic.

Instead of basing entry decisions on travelers’ countries of origin, the U.S. is focusing on vaccination status.

International visitors flying into the U.S. now need to show proof of vaccination before boarding and a negative coronavirus test taken within three days of their flight.

The three vaccines available in the U.S. — Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson — are accepted, as are vaccines cleared for emergency use by the W.H.O., including AstraZeneca and Covaxin.

Unvaccinated foreign visitors cannot enter the country, with limited exemptions.

Unvaccinated Americans returning home need to test negative for the coronavirus within one day of their flight and show proof they have purchased another test to take after arriving.

The hope is with these longstanding bans being lifted, the U.S. tourism industry will start to recover. The halt on travel caused a loss of nearly $300 billion in visitor spending, according to the U.S. Travel Association.

Keep up with the latest travel news, trends and feature stories.

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Ebola: More calls for travel bans or quarantines

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Ebola virus’s arrival in New York City and yet another West African nation — Mali — renewed questions about whether stricter travel restrictions would help lock down the deadly disease. The governors of New York and New Jersey went ahead and issued their own quarantine order.

There was good news, too, on Friday as one of the two American nurses who caught Ebola from a patient headed home from the hospital, stopping by the White House to get a celebratory hug from President Barack Obama. European nations pledged more money to fight the virus in Africa.

But the World Health Organization said Saturday the number of people believed to have Ebola has risen above 10,000.

A look at Ebola developments worldwide:

NERVOUS NEW YORKERS

Many New Yorkers were rattled by the news that a doctor unknowingly infected with the virus had ridden the subway, visited parks and gone bowling after returning from treating Ebola patients in Guinea.

Health officials said Dr. Craig Spencer followed U.S. and international protocols by checking his temperature daily and seeking treatment Thursday when he suffered diarrhea and a 100.3-degree fever.

He was listed in stable condition Friday at a special isolation unit at Bellevue Hospital Center, and a decontamination company was sent to his Harlem home. His fiancee, who was not showing symptoms, was in quarantine.

Ebola isn’t contagious until the infected person becomes ill, and city officials tried to reassure New Yorkers. But some people were breaking out the hand sanitizer and imagining scenarios where Ebola might spread through the city’s subway and other crowded spaces.

“There is no cause for alarm,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said. “New Yorkers who have not been exposed to an infected person’s bodily fluids are simply not at risk.

QUARANTINE QUESTION

The New York case prompted the governors of New York and New Jersey to issue a 21-day quarantine for any travelers, including doctors, who had contact with Ebola patients in West Africa.

Earlier in the day, at a congressional hearing, some U.S. lawmakers urged a travel ban or a quarantine. It can take up to 21 days after someone is infected to become sick.

They cited errors in the handling of the Dallas Ebola case and said the New York situation exposed more problems with the government’s response to the disease.

“I can tell you it’s not working. All you need to do is look at Craig Spencer,” said Rep. John Mica, R-Fla.

Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., said health authorities weren’t taking the threat seriously enough.

“This can’t just be about ideology and happy talk,” Lynch said.

Dr. Nicole Lurie, assistant HHS secretary for preparedness and response, told lawmakers a travel ban would be counterproductive and make it harder to stop the disease in West Africa, where the hardest-hit nations are desperate for more resources and medical help.

“There is an epidemic of fear, but not of Ebola, in the United States,” Lurie said.

Doctors Without Borders, which has been at the forefront of the battle against Ebola, stuck by its guidelines for health workers returning from the hot zone. They are closely monitored for disease and don’t need to be quarantined if they aren’t showing symptoms, the group said in a statement.

Samaritan’s Purse, a Christian relief organization based in North Carolina, said that its returning aid workers spend three weeks isolated in a “safe house,” where they are monitored for fever and asked to stay away from crowds and not visit with family.

NOW IN MALI, TOO

A 2-year-old girl who traveled by bus from Guinea with her grandmother died of Ebola after arriving in Mali. It was the first case in that West African nation, and World Health Organization officials say that because the child was sick and bleeding from her nose, she may have infected many people.

Health officials are monitoring 43 people, including 10 health care workers, who might have been exposed and the WHO is sending experts to help.

The disease is out of control in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Cases also have reached Nigeria and Senegal since the outbreak began in March, but those West African countries were able to stop its spread.

More than 4,800 people have died in the outbreak.

WHO: MORE THAN 10,000 SICKENED

As the outbreak continued to spread, the WHO said Saturday the number of people believed sickened by Ebola has passed 10,000. The Ebola epidemic in West Africa is the largest outbreak of the disease ever. There have also been cases in three other West African countries, Spain and the United States.

NURSES ON THE MEND

The two nurses who caught Ebola from a hospital patient in Dallas are now free of the disease.

The first to fall ill, Nina Pham, left a government hospital near Washington with a big smile, telling reporters she was eager to reunite with her dog, Bentley, who had been put in quarantine. The King Charles Spaniel so far has tested negative for the disease.

“I feel fortunate and blessed to be standing here today,” Pham told reporters outside the hospital.

Pham, 26, was invited to the White House afterward, where Obama hugged her and praised the bravery of health care workers who put themselves at risk to help Ebola patients.

Pham and co-worker Amber Vinson were infected while caring for a Liberian man at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. Thomas Eric Duncan, who became sick after traveling to the U.S., died in the hospital Oct. 8.

Vinson “is making good progress” and tests no longer find any Ebola virus in her blood, Emory University Hospital said in a statement Friday. She remains hospitalized.

EUROPE STEPS UP

The 28 nations of the European Union are pledging more than 1 billion euros — or about $1.26 billon — to the Ebola cause.

“Helping West Africa to cope with the crisis is the most effective way to prevent a serious outbreak of the disease elsewhere,” EU leaders said Friday in a statement at the end of their two-day fundraising summit.

Britain’s contribution of 205 million pounds ($329 million) was the largest in the group.

Separately, China pledged $81 million to the worldwide Ebola effort.

Associated Press writers Baba Ahmed in Mali, Marilynn Marchione in Milwaukee, Mike Stobbe in New York, and Erica Werner and Matthew Daly in Washington contributed to this report.

Why Airlines and the CDC Oppose Ebola Flight Bans

T he debate surrounding travel bans as a way to curb the spread of Ebola has intensified after Thursday’s congressional hearing , unleashing a flurry of impassioned arguments on both sides.

The stakes are high: those for a flight ban believe it’s a necessary protection against a deadly epidemic that has already reached American soil, but those against it say a ban would make the U.S. even more vulnerable to the virus.

Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.), who ran the hearing, wants to prohibit all non-essential commercial travel from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, as well as institute a mandatory 21-day quarantine order for any American who has traveled to the stricken African nations. This quarantine would include a ban on domestic travel.

Murphy explained his position at the opening of Thursday’s hearing: “A determined, infected traveler can evade the screening by masking the fever with ibuprofen… Further, it is nearly impossible to perform contact tracing of all people on multiple international flights across the globe, when contact tracing and treatment just within the United States will strain public health resources.” Murphy is not alone; other lawmakers such as House Speaker John Boehner and Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) agree.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), however, maintains that these congressmen have it backwards. While they think a travel ban would secure the U.S. border from Ebola and shrink the potential spheres of contact, CDC director Tom Frieden says instituting a flight ban would forfeit what little control we currently have over the virus.

“Right now we know who’s coming in,” Frieden said at the hearing. “If we try to eliminate travel… we won’t be able to check them for fever when they leave, we won’t be able to check them for fever when they arrive, we won’t be able—as we do currently—to see a detailed history to see if they’ve been exposed.” The White House has sided with Frieden. White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Thursday that a travel ban is “not something we’re considering.”

Inside the Ebola Crisis: The Images that Moved them Most

Even if Republican lawmakers are correct that a travel ban could curb the spread of Ebola in the U.S., it would also curb the movement of American health workers to the West African countries that are already desperate for more aid.

“If we do things that unintentionally make it harder to get that response in, to get supplies in, that make it harder for those governments to manage, to get everything from economic activity to travel going, it’s going to become much harder to stop the outbreak at the source,” Frieden said this week. “If that were to happen, it would spread for more months and potentially to other countries, and that would increase rather than decrease the risk to Americans.”

There’s also a practical concern surrounding the bans. Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States and who later died from the disease, took three flights and flew on two airlines on his trip from Monrovia, Liberia to Dallas, TX, stopping in Belgium on the way. Prohibiting travel from West Africa to the United States quickly falls down the rabbit hole of connecting flights in Europe, especially since there currently aren’t any direct flights between the U.S. and the primary Ebola hot zones.

A spokesperson for Airlines for America, the industry trade organization for leading U.S. airlines, told TIME, “We agree with the White House that discussions of flight bans are not necessary and actually impede efforts to stop the disease in its tracks in West Africa.”

And if domestic or international travel bans were to be instituted, others familiar with the airline industry warn of unintended consequences. Greg Winton, founder of The Aviation Law Firm outside Washington, D.C., told TIME that mass flight restrictions “will have a huge impact financially, certainly on the whole economy, not just the aviation sector.”

But at this point Winton says anything is possible, citing the Federal Aviation Administration’s shut down of air travel following 9/11 as an extreme precedent. “As far as FAA aviation law, none of that really takes precedence over disease control at this point,” he said.

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A boy's temperature is taken using an infrared digital laser thermometer at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja, Nigeria, in mid-August.

Why U.S. Is Reluctant to Issue Travel Ban on Ebola-Stricken West Africa

U.S. officials are reluctant to ban travel from Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea.

It seems so obvious: To keep Ebola out of the United States, simply keep anyone who has the deadly disease from getting in.

Some prominent Obama administration critics have made that argument this week, calling for a travel ban into the U.S. from the West African nations of Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, where more than 3,400 have died of the virus and thousands more are infected . There's a growing social media chorus calling for a ban, too. (Related: As Ebola's Spread Continues, Key Questions and Answers)

By cutting off travel from the Ebola zone, the thinking goes, someone like Thomas Duncan— the Liberian diagnosed with Ebola in Dallas last week and died Wednesday morning in a Dallas hospital—would never have made it into the United States. Ebola is not detectable (or contagious) until the patient develops symptoms such as fever and vomiting, so Duncan's illness could not have been diagnosed until after he arrived in the U.S.

The U.S. government does appear ready to increase screening of air passengers arriving in the United States from several West African nations by taking their temperatures, a federal official told CNN on Wednesday. And yet the Obama administration has steadfastly rejected the idea of an outright ban on travel to and from West Africa.

Thomas Frieden , director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has been asked repeatedly about a travel ban in near-daily briefings with the press over the past week. Each time, he has insisted it won't work.

Frieden, who is heading the government's Ebola response, has gone as far as to say that a travel ban could hurt Americans in the long run, by limiting the ability of relief workers and supplies to get into West Africa's Ebola zone.

"Until the disease is controlled in Africa, we can't get the disease to zero here," Frieden said at a Tuesday news conference. (Related: "Every Newly Emerging Disease Like Ebola Begins With a Mystery." )

Public health experts generally back the administration's actions, and most oppose a travel ban, at least for the moment. But they say the issue is more nuanced than Frieden has made it out to be. A travel ban would have kept Duncan from bringing Ebola to the U.S., they say, and could keep out some future infected travelers.

"It is a question, I think, on which people can honestly disagree," said Stephen S. Morse , professor of epidemiology at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. "There are good arguments to be made on both sides. It's partly a philosophical choice."

Politics and Perception

Six African countries have already banned or suspended flights from Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone, and others have instituted other travel restrictions. (Related: " Doctors and Nurses Risk Everything to Fight Ebola in West Africa .")

And since late August, the U.S. State Department has urged Americans to avoid all non-essential travel to Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea.

But Congressman Alan Grayson , a Florida Democrat, wants the U.S government to go further. Grayson said he would propose legislation calling for a ban if the administration continues to avoid one.

"It will prevent infected travelers in whom Ebola is asymptomatic and undetectable from traveling to the United States and then exposing Americans to the disease after they become symptomatic," he said by e-mail.

It takes anywhere from 2 to 21 days for someone who has been exposed to the Ebola virus to show symptoms. People who are not symptomatic are not contagious, and Duncan did not have symptoms while he was traveling and so could not pass the virus on to fellow passengers. No one who came into contact with Duncan has yet become ill, though several family members and contacts are under observation until the 21 days have elapsed.

A number of high-profile Republican politicians, including Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, have said that more needs to be done to keep Ebola victims from arriving on U.S. soil. But they've stopped short of demanding a full ban.

Wendy Parmet , director of the Program on Health Policy and Law at Northeastern University School of Law, in Boston, said that travel bans are appealing because they make people feel safe. But she argued that safety could be an illusion.

"It gives us the false assurance that we can ignore the problems that are happening in Africa," she said. "At the end of the day, we can't. And our own safety depends on our getting it right there, not on building the walls."

Turkish medics in hazmat gear move a patient suspected of being infected with the Ebola virus. After traveling from Ivory Coast to Turkey in late September, the patient is being transferred to a hospital in Istanbul.

Would a Ban Matter?

Many public health experts who oppose the travel ban argue that it's simply not practical. That includes Columbia University's Morse, who describes himself as a "fence-sitter" on the issue but doesn't support a travel ban right now because people with financial means can travel to an intermediate country before entering the United States. West Africa's many porous borders make such travel even easier, he said.

It wouldn't make sense to ban people who fly out of Senegal—where, like the United States, there has been only one case of Ebola, Morse said. But if one person with Ebola made it there, others could, too.

A ban could also encourage people to lie about where they have been, Morse said: "One of the real concerns is that if you outlaw [travel], it will discourage people from coming forth with the truth."

Frieden, for his part, has focused his opposition to a travel ban on the hardship it would present for fighting the epidemic in Africa.

"If we do something that impedes our ability to stop the outbreak in West Africa, it could spread further there," he said Tuesday.

On Sunday, Frieden also cited the example of Senegal, which has restricted flights from the affected countries. The restrictions delayed the arrival of investigators looking for people who had come into contact with the country's one Ebola patient.

Plus, international volunteers who go into West Africa to help treat Ebola patients need to know that they can get back out, Frieden said.

At SIM , an international mission that has led Ebola treatment centers and seen two of its American missionaries recover from the virus, travel restrictions might make volunteers think twice, said George Salloum, who leads the agency's Ebola crisis response team.

"Anything you do to restrict movement of people back and forth or keeping them from getting back to work, it could have an impact on the flow of people willing to serve overseas," he said.

Screening at Airports—and Beyond

Those on both sides of the travel ban debate appear to support aggressive airport screening, to ensure that sick people won't be able to get on a plane and potentially infect fellow passengers.

President Obama on Monday announced plans to step up airport screening in the United States and in West Africa, evaluating travelers for signs of illness, better informing airport personnel on how to spot Ebola, and handing out fact sheets to incoming passengers from affected countries.

He did not reveal specifics about what he would change and did not mention a travel ban.

Frieden said Tuesday that he would announce more details in a few days. Among measures being considered, he said, are temperature checks and questionnaires given to passengers arriving in the United States. On Wednesday morning, CNN reported that temperature checks will begin this weekend or next week on passengers whose travel itineraries include the affected West African nations.

Frieden said that 77 people have been blocked from leaving the affected countries since this summer, when officials began questioning travelers and screening their temperatures at airports in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. None of them tested positive for Ebola, he said, adding that they most likely had malaria, a mosquito-borne disease that shares early symptoms with Ebola.

A temperature check could have stopped Patrick Sawyer , a Liberian-born American citizen who flew from Liberia to Nigeria in late July while sick with Ebola, from spreading the disease.

Sawyer directly or indirectly infected 20 people in Nigeria, eight of whom died, as did Sawyer himself. It's unclear whether he knew he had Ebola when he left Liberia. A travel ban likely would not have stopped Sawyer from entering because he was a U.S. citizen, though an effective temperature scan would have.

Still, airport screening is hardly foolproof. Duncan may have lied when answering questions about whether he had been exposed to anyone with Ebola. Or he may not have realized that helping a pregnant neighbor to the hospital in Liberia exposed him to the virus, Frieden said.

Beyond airports, hospitals are an important second line of defense against Ebola, said Jill Holdsworth, an infection control practitioner at Inova Mount Vernon Hospital in Alexandria, Virginia.

Duncan's symptoms were missed as Ebola the first time he went to Texas Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, although he apparently indicated that he had recently arrived from Liberia. Several hospital workers and the ambulance drivers who took Duncan back to Texas Presbyterian two days later may have been exposed because of that mistake.

"As soon as a patient walks in, if they present with a fever, you should ask them about recent travel history," said Holdsworth, who is also a spokesperson for the 15,000-member Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology . "If they say yes, they immediately get taken to a room until we can figure out what's going on. That's what every hospital has to be doing."

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Watch CBS News

Lawmakers poised to spar with officials over Ebola travel ban

By Rebecca Kaplan

October 16, 2014 / 6:00 AM EDT / CBS News

There are few crises that can tear members of Congress away from their re-election campaigns less than three weeks before Election Day. Ebola is one of them.

Some House Energy and Commerce members will be returning to Washington Thursday in order to grill top officials over the U.S. response to the Ebola crisis at home and abroad. The hearing comes a day after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that a second Texas healthcare worker had contracted the virus, and that she had traveled by plane the day before showing symptoms, the point at which the virus is contagious.

Though officials have promised they can contain the virus in the U.S., treatment at hospitals here has been plagued by missteps and has raised doubts about the government's ability to deliver. Some lawmakers are proposing more stringent safeguards, many of which have already been dismissed by experts.

Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pennsylvania, chairman of subcommittee holding the hearing, favors a travel ban, suggesting in an interview with CBS News, "Why not isolate those who have Ebola and restrict travel visas and travel from coming into the United States, or for those who are here, to make sure that they have a level of isolation or quarantine until they pass this 21 day infectious potential period?"

Murphy isn't alone in wondering why the U.S. hasn't instituted a ban on West Africans traveling to the U.S. Seven of the 14 Republicans who sit on his panel say it's time for the administration to at least consider such a measure. Among them is Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Colorado, who is also taking time away from the campaign trail for the Thursday hearing, even though he's running a very closely contested race to unseat Colorado's Democratic senator, Mark Udall.

• Full coverage: Ebola crisis
• Obama stresses need for faster international response to Ebola

The rising number of cases here and Ebola scares at U.S. airports are also fueling public sentiment for more action. A recent Washington Post/ABC poll found that two-thirds of Americans support travel restrictions on people entering the U.S. from the West African countries that have been hardest hit by the virus.

Still, the administration has insisted for weeks that a travel ban will not make Americans safer from the virus.

"We don't want to isolate parts of the world, or people who aren't sick, because that's going to drive patients with Ebola underground, making it infinitely more difficult to address the outbreak," CDC Director Tom Frieden wrote in an op-ed published on Fox News last week. "Stopping planes from flying from West Africa would severely limit the ability of Americans to return to the United States or of people with dual citizenship to get home, wherever that may be. In addition to not stopping the spread of Ebola, isolating countries will make it harder to respond to Ebola, creating an even greater humanitarian and health care emergency."

Frieden is one of the witnesses who will testify Thursday, along with Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and other officials from the Food and Drug Administration, Health and Human Services, and Department of Homeland Security.

The subcommittee's top Democrat, Rep. Diana DeGette, says she's more interested in stopping the spread of the virus than in pointing fingers. She told CBS News, "I want to make sure that we have the protocols in place and that the first responders and the hospitals know about those protocols and are implementing them."

Frieden will tell lawmakers "we remain confident that our public health and health care systems can prevent an Ebola outbreak here," according to his prepared testimony for the hearing .

And Daniel Varga, the chief clinical officer and senior executive vice president for Texas Health Resources, the hospital network involved in treating the first Ebola case in the U.S., was set to testify but will remain in Dallas to deal with the ongoing treatment of health care workers who contracted Ebola. In his prepared remarks , he apologizes for the hospital's missteps in treating Thomas Eric Duncan , the Liberian man who was the first reported case of Ebola on U.S. soil, and admits, "we made mistakes. We did not correctly diagnose his symptoms as those of Ebola. We are deeply sorry."

DeGette did criticize Republicans for their slowness in scheduling the hearing, saying, "We had a number of other hearings throughout the fall...and yet no Ebola hearing. Now we've got a hearing two and a half weeks before the election with members seeming to kind of want to make this an election issue." She noted that she and other Democrats on the Energy and Commerce Committee first requested a hearing on Sept. 4 and said if the hearing had been held in September, their questions for the CDC could have been answered earlier, and "We could have pressured them to do things like institute testing when people arrive from West Africa; made sure there's training for the healthcare workers on how to respond and treat these patients."

DeGette also said earlier intervention by Congress might even have prevented the Dallas hospital from initially misdiagnosing Duncan.

Murphy says he just wants cooperation."There can't be any politics," he said. "Congress wants to be in full partnership with the administration. Tell us what you need, give us accurate factual material and we will work together to make sure everybody has what they need."

Rebecca Kaplan covers the 2012 presidential campaign for CBS News and National Journal.

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One of the Ebola remedies that's gaining traction is to isolate West Africa — the hot zone — and close America off to travelers from the region. Yesterday, the calls for a travel ban escalated at a congressional hearing on the epidemic, making it seem like a political eventuality. "It needs to be solved in Africa, but until then, we should not be letting these people in, period," said Fred Upton, member of the House Energy and Commerce oversight and investigations subcommittee. The fear of spread is understandable, especially as an Ebola outbreak appears poised to grow closer to home . America recently recorded its first Ebola death with the passing of a Liberian visitor Thomas Duncan, and the CDC announced the first-ever cases of Ebola transmission to two of Duncan's nurses . As Ebola panic peaks, conspiracy theories are spreading fast. So now is the time when we need to check our irrational reactions to this horrible crisis and avoid policies that will divert scarce resources from actual remedies. And we know from past experience that airport screening and travel bans are more about quelling the public's fears and political expediency than offering any real boost to public health security.

Airport screening is political theater

In October, the US government announced a new airport screening regime for incoming travelers from West Africa. Passengers arriving from Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia to five US airports will now be questioned about potential Ebola exposure and have their temperatures checked. Exit screening has already been underway in West Africa since the summer, and famously failed in the case of Duncan. He flew to Dallas with Ebola incubating in his body, and did not disclose the fact that he had close contact with a dying Ebola patient days before his trip. A Canadian study showed that airport screening during the 2003 SARS pandemic didn't detect a single case. This failure shouldn't be a surprise. We know from past outbreaks that these techniques don't work. Entry and exit screening was used during the 2003 SARS pandemic. A Canadian study of the public-health response following the outbreak found that airport screening was a waste of money and human resources: it didn't detect a single case of the disease. This screening was "inefficient and ineffective," the authors of the assessment concluded, noting that the Canadian public health agency should seriously rethink using it again in the future. Another study found that those clunky and costly thermal scanners used to detect fever in airports were similarly useless when it came to singling out sick people who are trying to enter a country. So spending extra money to identify feverish people at airports — especially those with Ebola who can be undetectable for days until they are symptomatic — is an expensive and ineffectual exercise.

Closing borders would be a disaster

Taking airline panic one step further, US lawmakers are now pushing to close off West Africa to the rest of the world. Allow Ebola to fester over there, and keep people safe over here. In opposing this idea, public health experts unanimously agree: sealing borders will not stop Ebola spread and will only exacerbate the crisis in West Africa — and heighten the risk of a global pandemic. There are three reasons why it's a crazy idea. The first is that it just won't work to stop the virus. The weeks following 9/11, when people stopped getting on planes, provided influenza researchers with a natural experiment in what a travel ban might do to viral spread. They found it didn't stop influenza from moving, it only delayed flu season by a couple of weeks. What's more, the researchers didn't measure whether this delay actually reduced flu cases or saved lives. But a look at the CDC data shows that flu deaths actually massively spiked during the 2001-2002 flu season, rising from about 3,900 the year before to more than 13,000 post-9/11. Writing in the Washington Post , Laurie Garrett — senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations — pointed out: "Many nations have banned flights from other countries in recent years in hopes of blocking the entry of viruses, including SARS and H1N1 'swine flu,'" she added. "None of the bans were effective, and the viruses gained entry to populations regardless of what radical measures were taken to keep them out." In CDC Director Tom Freiden's words , "Even when governments restrict travel and trade, people in affected countries still find a way to move and it is even harder to track them systematically." In other words, determined people will find a way to cross borders anyway, but unlike at airports, we can't track their movements. 90 percent of any outbreak's economic costs "come from irrational and disorganized efforts of the public to avoid infection." The second reason a travel ban won't work is that it would actually make stopping the outbreak in West Africa more difficult. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said , "To completely seal off and don't let planes in or out of the West African countries involved, then you could paradoxically make things much worse in the sense that you can't get supplies in, you can't get help in, you can't get the kinds of things in there that we need to contain the epidemic." Some have suggested a half-measure: close borders allowing exceptions for doctors, aid workers, and medical supplies only. The problem with this idea is that responses to humanitarian crises are not well-organized affairs. They're chaos. A bureaucratic regime that systematically screens who can go in and out of affected countries would only slow down or make impossible the much-needed relief. Plus, many aid workers — like reserve staff for Doctors Without Borders — would be responsible for booking their own tickets to get to the affected region. How would they do this then? And how long would it take to get them over there? The third reason closing borders is nuts is that it will devastate the economies of West Africa and further destroy the limited health systems there. The World Bank already estimates this outbreak could cost West African economies up to $33 billion. That's a lot for any country, but especially when you're talking about some of the world's poorest. World Health Organization director Margaret Chan reminded us that 90 percent of any outbreak's economic costs "come from irrational and disorganized efforts of the public to avoid infection."

The best way to protect Americans is by protecting West Africans

We live in a world where many crises are predictable. We don't know when the next one will strike, or where, but we know it will eventually come. In the health field, we even know approximately what it will look like. Every few years, for example, we seem to get another global pandemic that spreads across borders as if they don't exist. In 2002 it was SARS, then in 2009 it was Swine Flu. Today it's Ebola. In five year's time it will be something else. If we know these health crises are coming, why is it that we never seem ready? It's true that we can't prepare for every kind of outbreak in every place at every time; having a large standing army of white coated doctors at the ready would just be too expensive. But there is no reason we can't use the lessons learned from past outbreaks to make better choices in this time of Ebola. We also need to stop diverting precious resources on policies and procedures that do nothing to help the public. Instead of using airport screening and entertaining plans to seal borders, the government should focus its attention and resources on West Africa where the outbreak is out of control and where real action could actually be helpful in protecting America's health security. Because we know this for sure: the longer Ebola rages on in West Africa, the more people get the disease there, the more of a chance it has of spreading elsewhere. Three people in the US have been stricken by Ebola; more than 8,000 have in West Africa. The best way to avoid more cases in America is by protecting West Africans.

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US imposes Ebola travel restrictions on passengers from west Africa

New guidelines will force travellers from affected countries to fly via US airports with screening procedures in place

The Obama administration has announced America’s first Ebola-related travel restrictions, forcing passengers originating from affected countries in west Africa to fly via US airports with screening procedures in place.

The limited move comes after days of mounting political pressure to introduce outright travel bans on such passengers entering the US, but will instead make sure all recent travellers to Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea are subject to basic tests for fever and face questioning on possible exposure to the disease.

“We are continually evaluating whether additional restrictions or added screening and precautionary measures are necessary to protect the American people and will act accordingly,” added Homeland Security secretary Jeh Johnson in a statement .

Five US airports – New York’s JFK, Newark, Dulles, Atlanta and Chicago – now have the additional Ebola screening protocols in place, which are designed to supplement exit screenings that take place in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea,

There are no direct flights from these three countries into the US, but passengers who have been there in the last 21 days and travel through foreign airports will now be required to first enter the US through one of these five airports. They already handle more than 90% of such travel, according to US officials.

“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 Johnson.

“We are working closely with the airlines to implement these restrictions with minimal travel disruption. If not already handled by the airlines, the few impacted travellers should contact the airlines for rebooking, as needed.”

Previously, the administration had insisted that the screening arrangements at the five airports would be sufficient because only a small number of travellers from west Africa arrived through other cities.

But speaking after the latest announcement, which follows a similar climbdown on its earlier opposition to appointing a single Ebola “czar” to co-ordinate its response, White House officials insisted US policy against wider travel restrictions was not shifting.

“Our views on the travel ban have not changed,” said spokesman Josh Earnest. “The president has reached the conclusion, with the help of expert advisers, that a travel ban would only serve to put the American public at greater risk.”

It said the new homeland security arrangements had taken some time to put in place because of the need to liaise with third-party countries in Europe, where many passengers from west Africa travel through on their way to the US.

Ironically, the news came as Rwanda announced new travel restrictions on travellers arriving from the US and Spain, the two countries outside Africa with confirmed Ebola infections.

“Visitors who have been in the United States or Spain during the last 22 days are now required to report their medical condition – regardless of whether they are experiencing symptoms of Ebola,” said a statement from Rwandan officials.

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The Administration's Response to Ebola

President obama provides an update on the u.s.-led response to ebola:.

"Here’s the bottom line. Patients can beat this disease. And we can beat this disease. But we have to stay vigilant. We have to work together at every level — federal, state and local. And we have to keep leading the global response, because the best way to stop this disease, the best way to keep Americans safe, is to stop it at its source — in West Africa."

– President Obama, October 25, 2014

Ten months ago, the first U.S. personnel deployed to West Africa to fight the Ebola outbreak on the frontlines in West Africa. This epidemic has grown into the deadliest Ebola outbreak the world has ever seen — and the President is committed to treating and tackling Ebola as both a national security priority, and an example of American leadership.

The U.S. has built, coordinated, and led a worldwide response to the Ebola outbreak while strengthening our preparedness here at home. And thanks to the hard work of our military members, civilian responders, and health care workers, we have dramatically bent the curve of the epidemic. Cases are down 80 percent from peak levels. With this improved outlook, the President is planning to bring virtually all of the troops who deployed to the region home by April 30, while continuing to ramp up our civilian response beyond the 10,000 civilian workers who are already involved in our response effort.

We’re making significant progress, but much work remains to meet this challenge until there are zero cases in West Africa and our U.S. public health infrastructure is fully complete.

Get the latest CDC updates on the current outbreak , and continue reading to see what the U.S. is doing to consolidate this progress and start the next phase of our response.

Understand the Facts

• It’s not transmitted through the air like the flu.
• According to public health authorities, the only way a person can get Ebola is by coming into direct contact with the body fluids (urine, saliva, sweat, feces, vomit, breast milk and semen) of someone who is already showing symptoms.
• If the person does not have symptoms, they are not contagious.

October 24, 2014

An Ebola Update from Dr. Anthony Fauci

Dr. Anthony Fauci, infectious disease chief at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), explains how Ebola spreads and what we’re doing to address it in the U.S. and in West Africa.

In response to frequently asked questions about Ebola, here's what our public health officials are saying.

Q: What is Ebola, and what are the symptoms? A: Ebola virus is the cause of a Ebola virus disease. Symptoms include:

• Joint and muscle aches
• Stomach pain
• Lack of appetite
• Abnormal bleeding

Symptoms may appear anywhere from 2 to 21 days after exposure to Ebola virus though 8-10 days is most common.

Q: How is Ebola transmitted? A: Ebola is transmitted through direct contact with the blood or body fluids (urine, saliva, sweat, feces, vomit, breast milk, and semen) of an infected symptomatic person or though exposure to objects (such as needles) that have been contaminated with infected secretions.

Q: Can I get Ebola from a person who is infected but doesn’t have any symptoms? A: No. Individuals who are not symptomatic are not contagious. In order for the virus to be transmitted, an individual would have to have direct contact with an individual who is experiencing symptoms or has died of the disease.

Visit the CDC website for more information on Ebola.

Where We Stand Today

In March 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported an outbreak of Ebola virus disease in the West African country of Guinea. Additional cases have since been reported in the countries of Liberia and Sierra Leone, as well as Nigeria and Senegal. To date, there have been more than 22,500 reported Ebola cases in West Africa, with more than 8,900 deaths. At home, U.S. medical teams have treated 12 Ebola patients — all but two recovered.

Since the start of the outbreak, the United States has sent more than 3,000 DOD, CDC, USAID, and other U.S. health officials to Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea to assist with response efforts, as part of a 10,000-person U.S.-backed civilian response. With their help, the U.S. government has:

• Constructed 15 Ebola treatment units in the region
• Provided more than 400 metric tons of personal protective equipment and other medical and relief supplies
• Operated more than 190 burial teams in the region
• Conducted aggressive contact tracing to identify chains of transmission
• Trained health care workers and conducted community outreach
• Worked with international partners to identify travelers who may have Ebola before they leave the region

Thanks to their efforts, and the work of countless others from around the world, the number of people who are contracting Ebola has declined sharply from peak levels.

The decline in cases is encouraging, but just one case can lead to flare-ups of the disease that could prolong the outbreak in West Africa and endanger Americans on our shores. As we move into the next phase of our government-wide and worldwide response to Ebola, the U.S. will continue to focus on protecting against cases at home and getting to zero cases in West Africa.

What We’re Doing at Home

Since early October, CDC and Department of Homeland Security personnel have conducted entry screening to detect signs of Ebola or potential exposure among all passengers arriving in the U.S. at the following airports, which now receive nearly all travelers coming in from countries affected by the outbreak:

• John F. Kennedy International Airport - New York, NY
• Washington Dulles International Airport - Washington, D.C.
• Newark Liberty International Airport - Newark, NJ
• Chicago O'Hare International Airport - Chicago, IL
• Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport - Atlanta, GA

A total of 7,700 adults and children have been screened. Each traveler has his or her contact information forwarded to state and local public health authorities, and is subjected to 21 days of compulsory monitoring to ensure any signs of Ebola are detected early. If an individual displays symptoms, they are isolated, rapidly diagnosed, and treated.

If there is a need to treat an Ebola patient in the U.S., the CDC and HHS have led efforts to ensure that our health system is prepared to spot, diagnose, transport, and treat the patient effectively without infecting others. Prior to October 2014, there were only three facilities that were officially able to contain and treat Ebola: Emory University Hospital, University of Nebraska Medical Center, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center. Now, we have a network of 51 Ebola treatment centers in 16 states and D.C., with 72 available beds.

On top of expanding the network of hospitals that can assess, respond, and treat patients, the U.S. government is enhancing our domestic preparedness in these key ways:

• Increasing the number of Ebola testing labs throughout the U.S. that can quickly and safely screen a potential Ebola specimen
• Educating more than 150,000 health care workers on how to identify, isolate, diagnose, and care for patients under investigation for Ebola
• Developing countermeasures — including the first Ebola vaccine to progress to Phase 2 testing — to prevent and treat Ebola
• Converting at least 10 of the Ebola Treatment Centers into long-term Regional Ebola and Pandemic Treatment Centers for long-term readiness for years to come
• Helping state and local public health systems accelerate and improve their operational readiness and preparedness for Ebola or other infectious diseases

Read here for more details on our continued domestic preparedness efforts.

What We’re Doing Abroad

The U.S. strategy to combat the Ebola outbreak abroad consists of four key goals:

• Controlling the epidemic at its source in West Africa
• Minimizing the secondary impacts of the epidemic that aren't directly caused by the disease
• Leading a coordinated international response
• Building a robust global health security infrastructure so we're prepared over the long run to confront epidemics such as the Ebola epidemic

The United States has already committed more than $921 million toward fighting Ebola in West Africa and convened a special U.N. Security Council on the epidemic. We will continue to pursue an adaptable strategy that meets the evolving conditions on the ground until there are zero cases of Ebola in the region. With the significant progress we’re making toward that goal, the U.S. is planning for the return of the majority of the troops deployed in Operation United Assistance by April 30, though more than half of our troops are already back in the U.S. About 100 military personnel, working with regional military partners, will remain to support our response efforts.

As we welcome our troops home, we will increase the strength of our civilian response. With more than 10,000 civilians engaged in this effort with U.S. support, we will contain the virus, launch recovery efforts to strengthen health systems, prepare for future infectious disease outbreaks, and build stronger global health security. This fight is far from over, but our sustained engagement in the region will help bring an end to the epidemic -- and will help health workers reopen their doors to treat for malaria, immunize more children, and keep pregnant mothers healthy.

Read here for more details on the next phase of our international response to Ebola.

What We Need to Fight Ebola

Since the first cases of Ebola were reported in West Africa last spring, Americans have understood the need to contain the disease at its source while fortifying our preparedness in the U.S. That is why Republican and Democratic lawmakers came together to approve $5.4 billion of the President’s emergency funding request to implement a comprehensive Ebola response.

The Administration will use these funds to:

• Prepare the U.S. health care system for Ebola cases
• Continue the development of Ebola vaccines and treatments
• Build on progress combating the epidemic in West Africa
• Enable detection and prevent the spread of Ebola to other countries

Read here to see how federal agencies are using funds to improve both our domestic and international response to this epidemic.

How You Can Help

Looking for ways to help fight the global spread of Ebola? Regular Americans across the country are helping in a variety of ways right now. Here are a couple options available to you.

Sign Up to be a Medical Volunteer If you're a qualified medical professional and want to volunteer to work in West Africa, the Center for International Disaster Information (CIDI) can connect you with reputable organizations who are active in the Ebola response. Click here to learn more .

The CDC is also developing an introductory safety training course for licensed clinicians who want to work in an Ebola Treatment Unit in Africa. Learn more here .

Click here to meet some of the CDC experts who have traveled to West Africa to help stop the spread of the disease.

Share Your Idea to Help Combat The Global Spread of Ebola USAID is calling on the global community to come up with practical, cost-effective innovations that can help health care workers on the front lines give better care and stop Ebola's spread. Learn more and take action now .

Learn About Other Ways to Contribute For those who wish to donate money or contribute in other ways, USAID is providing information about non-governmental organizations responding to Ebola in West Africa. Get more information from the USAID website here .

Latest News

From the blog, the ticking timeline, progress report: getting to zero ebola cases in west africa, sharing the stories of ebola innovators, from the pressroom.

Scott Brundage

In March the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that it was banning ongoing uses of asbestos. People might have thought, Wait—what? Wasn’t it already banned? After all, many remember asbestos—a naturally occurring, fibrous mineral that is resistant to heat and flame but is also toxic and carcinogenic—being removed from schools and hospitals across the U.S. starting in the 1970s. The new EPA decision is welcome, of course, but it highlights the need to figure out a better process for dispensing with deadly products.

Scientific understanding of the harms of asbestos can be traced back to 1898, when British factory inspector Lucy Deane described asbestos manufacturing as one of four dusty occupations worthy of scientific observation because of “their easily demonstrated danger to the health of workers.” In 1927 the term “asbestosis” was adopted to describe a devastating lung disease often seen in asbestos workers, and doctors began to notice that victims of asbestosis often also developed lung cancer.

More than 30 years passed before the asbestos-cancer link was firmly established, however. In 1960 a book published by E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Company openly acknowledged that “pulmonary carcinoma has been ob­­served with such high frequency in em­­ployees of the asbestos industry that a causal relationship has been accepted by most authorities.” Four years later Irving J. Selikoff, a doctor and researcher at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, tied together various lines of investigation in a now classic study. He found a statistically significant higher incidence of mesothelioma—an otherwise extremely rare cancer—in workers exposed to asbestos compared with that in the general population. Asbestos exposure also led to increased rates of lung, pleura, stomach, colon and rectal cancers. Crucially, the evidence indicated that there was no safe level of exposure.

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At a 1964 New York Academy of Sciences conference on asbestos, industry representatives agreed that the only way to prevent cancers caused by asbestos ex­­posure was to eliminate that exposure. And so, in the 1970s, many nations began to ban asbestos. As of 2020, at least 67 countries had banned asbestos use either entirely or with very limited exemptions.

Because of the long latency period of many cancers caused by as­­best­os—and the difficulty of knowing all the circumstances in which people might have been exposed to asbestos outside industrial settings—it is hard to say just how many people have died or are still dying from asbestos. The University of Washington–based In­­sti­tute for Health Metrics and Evaluation estimates that as­­best­os caused more than 40,764 worker deaths in 2019 alone; this figure does not include deaths outside industrial settings, such as those of family members exposed to asbestos brought home on a worker’s clothes or shoes.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, be­­tween 1999 and 2015 there were 45,221 me­­so­­the­li­o­ma deaths in the U.S. The cumulative number of occupational deaths that were caused by asbestos over the course of the 20th century may be something on the order of 17 million, with perhaps an­­oth­er two million deaths from nonoccupational exposures.

Yet until now, only various partial and limited bans have been in place in the U.S.

It’s generally impossible to say why something didn’t happen in a given situation. But in this case, industry pushback, aided by antiregulatory attitudes that have dominated in the U.S. since the 1980s, clearly played a role. In 1989 the EPA tried to use its authority under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TOSCA) to phase out and ultimately ban most asbestos-containing products. But a company named Corrosion Proof Fittings, backed by several trade associations, successfully challenged the rule in federal court. The plaintiffs claimed that the agency’s rule would save only three lives over the course of 13 years and at “an approximate cost of $128–277 million.” That was patently false, and the court did not accept it. But it did accept a different complaint about the procedure by which the EPA had come to its proposed remedy.

The EPA could have proposed a new rule, but during the 1990s the political tide had turned against “big government” as various industry groups worked to de­­mon­ize “regulation,” and the EPA stood back. Rather than attempting to propose a new, broad rule under TOSCA, the agency fo­cused on more limited and specific regulations, such as developing guidelines to accredit asbestos-removal personnel, or regulations that were explicitly authorized by Congress.

One such regulation was the 1990 As­­bestos School Hazard Abatement Re­authorization Act , which empowered the EPA to help schools deal with asbestos on their grounds. As a result of these choices, asbestos use was greatly reduced, but it was not eliminated, and a number of asbestos-bearing products remained on the market.

Moreover, throughout the 1990s and 2000s industry groups pursued a strategy similar to that of the tobacco industry, attempting to cast doubt on the science that demonstrated the harms of asbestos. Among other things, they attempted to discredit asbestos researchers—particularly Selikoff—as zealots and to muddy the scientific waters by claiming that only certain mineralogical forms of asbestos were hazardous, when in fact the science supported no such distinction.

In 2016 Congress amended TOSCA to restore to the EPA some of the authority that had been stripped from it by the courts. The asbestos ban is the EPA’s first new rule under the amended law.

America was once a leader in occupational health and safety. Now we are laggards. It took 126 years for us to heed Lucy Deane’s warning about the dangers of asbestos. We need a better way to translate science into policy.

This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

Should babies, smelly passengers be on a no-fly list? Dealing with difficult air travelers

Is it time to finally ban screaming babies from the plane? How about argumentative passengers? Or people who smell bad?

Those are serious questions. With the busy summer travel season right around the corner, Congress is considering a nationwide no-fly list for disruptive passengers.

Banning the biggest troublemakers in the skies, as the Protection from Abusive Passengers Act proposes, is an idea worth considering. So maybe this is the right time to figure out who belongs on that list.

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Here's the official answer: Under the law, passengers would land in the no-fly database for one of several offenses, including a conviction for assaulting, threatening, or intimidating a crew member of an aircraft.

Unofficially, passengers have far different opinions on who should get grounded. And they are not shy about creating their own no-fly list, sometimes on the fly. Consider the recent Frontier Airlines flight in which passengers voted to remove an unruly passenger . Talk about frontier justice.

But making a "no-fly" list of disruptive passengers may be impractical when you start thinking about it. There may be a more effective way to deal with difficult air travelers.

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Should we ban babies? 

Babies – especially the screaming ones – are high on the list of in-flight annoyances. And those of you without kids will probably add, "Is there any other kind?" Who can forget that viral video of an adult passenger on a recent Southwest Airlines flight losing it because of a screaming infant?

Under normal circumstances, air travelers are far less vocal about getting rid of babies on planes. Some travelers have told me that well-behaved children should be able to fly. But responsible parents ought to carefully consider their air travel plans if they know they have a cranky little flier. 

It becomes a much more interesting debate when you ask if babies should be allowed in first class. Passengers have quietly signaled their support for child-free premium cabins, or at least a kids' section in the back of the plane.

Bottom line: Banning all babies is impractical and probably also illegal. But it wouldn't surprise me to see a viral video incident or two this summer involving irresponsible parents getting kicked off a flight.

How about disruptive passengers?

Misbehaving passengers is another category of a bannable flier. And here, too, it's clear that air travelers have a broader definition than lawmakers.  

"Being disruptive in what could be a dangerous situation is unacceptable," said William Muller, a restaurant manager from Miami who travels to Europe frequently. "If someone has so little self-control that they can't wait until the plane lands to address whatever issue they have, then they should not be allowed to fly."

Mueller defines disruptive as a passenger who is so out of control that the plane has to be diverted or resulting in the passenger needing to be removed from the plane before takeoff. But he says other air travelers may have a more inclusive definition of disruptive.

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They do. If by "disruptive" you mean the person sitting next to me who can't stop talking, then we could be talking about half the plane. What about the guy who keeps hitting up the flight attendant for another drink – or hitting on the flight attendant ?

Here, too, we're entering dangerous airspace. Do we need to pass a psych evaluation to get permission to fly? 

Should air travelers pass the sniff test?

Of course, it's not just behavior that can get you banned. It's also how you smell. Or look. Every summer, there's at least one well-publicized incident involving a passenger wearing an inappropriate T-shirt. Flight attendants order the passenger to change shirts, the passenger makes a TikTok about it, and life goes on.

Smells are more complicated. How do you define a bad smell? Is it someone wearing too much perfume? The wrong perfume? Someone who skipped a shower that morning? Someone who doesn't believe in showering? Flight attendants have to make that call quickly when everyone is piling on board. And then, if you happen to be stuck next to someone who stinks, you have to deal with it. 

Story continues below.

How about sick passengers? They shouldn't fly, either, if they're contagious. Janet Ruth Heller recently sat in front of two passengers who were coughing and sneezing the entire flight. 

"They were not wearing masks, and they did not cover their mouths with their hands," Heller, a frequent traveler and retired college professor from Portage, Michigan, recalled. "I caught their disease and was very ill for a month."

So now we have to medically screen passengers? This is getting complicated.

On second thought, maybe no one should be banned

All this talk of banning may be taking us to the wrong place. Stopping a violent or unruly passenger from flying is only the beginning. Margaret King, director of The Center for Cultural Studies & Analysis, said other groups could quickly follow, including anger management failures, drug addicts, and "maybe even passengers who are anxious and depressed."

It could soon spiral out of control. People with comfort animals or carrying too much luggage could follow. 

"It could become a long and inclusive list," King added. "Any condition that promotes disruptive behavior would be eligible. And that, when you think about it, is a widely distributed trait."

Come to think of it, this idea of having a nationwide no-fly list might be a terrible idea too. We already have a way of preventing criminals from boarding a flight: lockup.

Airlines and their friends in Congress believe the best way to stop more unruly flier incidents is to stop the unruly fliers from boarding. But maybe the fliers are unruly because flying is such a dehumanizing experience. Fix that and maybe you won't need a no-fly list.

Elliott's strategies for handling a disruptive flier

Are you ready to share a plane with a disruptive passenger? Neither am I, but here are my strategies for surviving the flight.

• Move to a different seat. The best advice for handling a problem passenger is not to handle one at all. Discreetly ask a flight attendant if you can move to a different part of the plane. Or, if there's an empty seat in the same class of service, just move.
• Apply gentle peer pressure. For baby-on-board incidents, a polite and nonconfrontational appeal to the parents can help. You know, if a toddler is using the tray table as a drum set, it's OK to say something to Mom and Dad. The same strategy works with other groups, but don't be too confrontational. Wouldn't want to end up on TikTok now, would you?
• Ask a flight attendant for help. Crewmembers are trained to handle confrontations with disruptive passengers. Again, you might want to ask the flight attendant for help – out of earshot of the disruptive passenger – unless the passenger is a screaming infant.

Christopher Elliott  is an author, consumer advocate, and journalist. He founded  Elliott Advocacy , a nonprofit organization that helps solve consumer problems. He publishes  Elliott Confidential , a travel newsletter, and the  Elliott Report , a news site about customer service. If you need help with a consumer problem, you can  reach him here  or email him at  [email protected] .

Doubts Over Abortion Travel Bans Lead States to Try Other Means

By Mary Anne Pazanowski

Conservative lawmakers are threatening to enact a nationwide ban on abortion should they win decisively in November, and they’re doing their best in the interim to make it harder for people to end pregnancies even in states where it’s still lawful to do so.

One target is travel between states that have made abortion mostly illegal and those that still protect a right to abortion—travel that has picked up significantly since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization .

Ending that travel is essential to the goal of eliminating abortion nationwide, said David S. Cohen, a professor at Drexel University’s Thomas R. Kline School of Law, who has a law review article on abortion travel bans.

There are no state laws that explicitly prohibit people from traveling from one state to another for that purpose, and people on both sides of the issue agree that a travel ban probably would be unconstitutional. But some anti-abortion states are experimenting with measures that could have the same effect, like laws that prohibit “trafficking” minors for abortion.

While trial courts haven’t been open to these tactics so far, upper-level judges mostly haven’t weighed in yet. A federal case in Alabama, for example, likely will eventually end up in the conservative-leaning US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, which also reviews cases from federal courts in Florida and Georgia.

But the court action is picking up ahead of a national election in which abortion is expected to be a deciding issue for many voters.

State Law Conflicts

Abortion is nearly totally illegal in about half the states, meaning that it’s still legal in the other half. The constitutionality of state laws barring travel between states, however, is a question that’s “been debated by scholars for decades,” Cohen said.

The Supreme Court has never overturned a state law that impeded travel in these circumstances, although Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, in his concurring opinion in Dobbs, said the US Constitution protects a right to interstate travel, he said.

Abortion travel is perfectly legal, Molly Duane, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, said. Talk of travel bans is “fear-mongering,” she said.

Ingrid Duran, director of state legislation for National Right to Life Committee, told Bloomberg Law that a broad travel ban for adults “would be wholly unconstitutional,” unenforceable, and ineffective at protecting unborn life. It wouldn’t be part of the group’s legislative strategy, she said, which is focused on trafficking bans.

Creative Alternatives

Constitutional questions aside, some states are now using other means to isolate and intimidate pregnant people to prevent them from going out of state for abortion care, according to Jamila Johnson, senior counsel at the Lawyering Project, a nonprofit group that advocates for reproductive rights.

For example, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall (R) threatened to use the state’s criminal conspiracy law to prosecute women who want to end pregnancies outside the state, along with people who help them. Judge Myron H. Thompson, of the US District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, allowed two of these “helper” groups to proceed with a lawsuit meant to stop Marshall from using the threat of prosecution as a de facto travel ban.

“Alabama can no more restrict people from going to, say, California to engage in what is lawful there than California can restrict people from coming to Alabama to do what is lawful here,” Thompson said in a May 6 opinion denying Marshall’s motion to dismiss the suit.

If Americans can’t travel freely throughout the US, then “we’re just a collection of 50 states, not a country,” Johnson said. And if states can lawfully ban people from traveling to other states to get legal abortion care, we’re “already in a dystopian future,” Duane added.

Marshall, however, has already accomplished his goal of “chilling” abortion advocacy in the state, Johnson said. The Alabama groups stopped helping pregnant women, she said.

Trafficking Bans

Duran’s group is promoting trafficking bans—so named because they’re modeled on state and federal laws that prohibit human trafficking—that would preclude adults from helping minors get abortion care without their parents’ knowledge and consent, whether in-state or out. It’s a “misconception” to call these provisions travel bans, she said.

So far, Idaho is the only state to have enacted an anti-abortion trafficking law, but Tennessee lawmakers adopted a similar statute in early May that’s been sent to Gov. Bill Lee (R) for his signature. These laws prohibit adults from recruiting, harboring, or transporting minors for abortions with the specific intent to conceal it from their parents.

Duran said she’d like to see them catch on in other states. Bills were introduced in Alabama and Oklahoma this year but didn’t advance.

Megan Wold, an attorney who helped lobby Idaho lawmakers to pass the bill, told Bloomberg Law that that statute is mean to protect parents’ right to care for their children and prevent teens from being coerced into ending pregnancies.

Idaho has a strict parental consent requirement, while two of its neighboring states—Washington and Oregon—do not, Duran said. The laws criminalize in-state conduct, and “zero in on” people like older boyfriends and human traffickers who take advantage of more-liberal neighboring state policies, she added.

Restrictions on minors, however, are often a starting point for states, Duane said. Laws aimed at interfering with minors’ abortion travel likely are just a “test run” for laws that prohibit helping adults, Johnson added.

Ninth Circuit judges hearing oral arguments in early May suggested they might affirm part of an injunction that appears to impede helpers’ free speech rights, but reverse it to the extent it precludes enforcement of provisions that seem to address conduct.

Legal developments in Texas aimed at making people believe that they’ll be risking liability if they have or help facilitate out-of-state abortions include using an unusual procedural tactic known as a Rule 202 petition, Duane said. That allows potential litigants to get information before filing a lawsuit, she said.

Her group is representing a Texas woman whose ex-boyfriend filed a petition to get information for a potential suit against his ex-wife in connection with an abortion she had in Colorado. The petition has been sealed to protect the woman’s privacy and safety, Duane added.

Additionally, several local Texas jurisdictions have enacted laws making it illegal to travel through them to obtain abortions, Duane said. Cohen doubted they can be enforced.

Actions like these are intended to “trap” pregnant people in states that leave them without options, Duane said. There’s no reason to believe they’ll stop, she said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Mary Anne Pazanowski in Washington at [email protected]

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Rob Tricchinelli at [email protected] ; Nicholas Datlowe at [email protected]

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• Signs and Symptoms
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Clinical Signs of Ebola Disease

• Ebola disease can be confused with other more common infectious diseases, such as malaria, typhoid fever, meningococcemia, and other bacterial infections.
• Gastrointestinal symptoms, such as severe watery diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain, may develop after four to five days of illness.
• Bleeding is not universally present in Ebola patients.

Disease presentation

Early stage of disease.

Patients with Ebola disease generally have an abrupt onset of fever and symptoms typically 8 to 10 days after exposure. Initial signs and symptoms are nonspecific and may include elevated body temperature or subjective fever, chills, myalgia, and fatigue. These are known as "dry" symptoms.

Malaria is the most common cause of acute undifferentiated fever after travel to sub-Saharan Africa and some other tropical areas. If applicable, follow the Guidance for Malaria Diagnosis in Patients with Suspect Ebolavirus Infection in the United States , as diagnostics should be done promptly and treatment instituted immediately. Typhoid fever , meningococcemia , and other bacterial infections, like pneumonia , also have similar nonspecific symptoms and can be confused with Ebola.

Mid-late stage of disease

Four to five days after symptom onset, patients can progress to gastrointestinal symptoms, or "wet" symptoms. "Wet" symptoms can include severe watery diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain. Other symptoms, such as chest pain, shortness of breath, headache, or confusion, may develop. Patients often have eye irritation and redness. Hiccups have been reported. Seizures may occur, and cerebral edema has been reported.

Bleeding is not universally present. However, it can manifest later in the course of disease as petechiae, ecchymosis or oozing from venipuncture sites, mucosal hemorrhage, or blood in stool or vomitus. In general, unexplained bleeding is reported in 40% of patients.

Patients may develop a mixture of flat and raised lesions on the skin, which are red in color, by days 5 to 7, usually involving the neck, trunk, and arms, that can peel or flake off.

Pregnant people may experience spontaneous miscarriages.

The most common signs and symptoms reported during the 2014–2016 West Africa outbreak include fever (87%), fatigue (76%), vomiting (68%), diarrhea (66%), and loss of appetite (65%).

Patients with fatal disease usually develop more severe clinical signs early during infection and die typically between days 6 and 16 of complications, including multiorgan failure and septic shock (mean of 7.5 days from symptoms onset to death during the 2014-2016 outbreak in West Africa). In nonfatal cases, patients may have fever for several days and improve, typically around day 6. Patients who survive can have a prolonged convalescence.

Clinical assessment

Laboratory findings at admission may include leukopenia, frequently with lymphopenia, followed later by elevated neutrophils and a left shift. Platelet counts often are decreased in the 50,000 to 100,000 range. Amylase may be elevated, reflecting pancreatic involvement (inflammation/infection). Hepatic transaminases are elevated with aspartate aminotransferase (AST) exceeding alanine aminotransferase (ALT); these values may peak at more than 1,000 IU/L. Proteinuria may be present. Prothrombin (PT) and partial thromboplastin times (PTT) are prolonged and fibrin degradation products are elevated, consistent with disseminated intravascular coagulation.

Learn about Ebola disease, caused by an infection with one of a group of viruses, known as ebolaviruses, that are found primarily in sub-Saharan Africa.

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Philadelphia cracks top 10 'Best Summer Travel Destinations' for 2024

People of Pedestrian Bridge with Skyline with Schuylkill River Boardwalk at sunset, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. (Photo by: Jumping Rocks/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

PHILADELPHIA - Why spend money on summer vacations when you live in one of the best travel destinations in the country?

The Philadelphia area recently made WalletHub's 2024 list of "Best Summer Travel Destination."

The study analyzed 100 of the country's largest metro areas to find which places "offer the most bang for your buck."

So, where did Philadelphia land on the list? No. 7!

Philadelphia offering variety of safe, summer programs to keep kids engaged and active

The School District of Philadelphia and other city departments are gearing up for summer and they want to get the word out on programs that will be available for kids and teens.

The ranking included Philadelphia, along with Camden and Wilmington, to complete the metro area.

Travel costs and hassles, local costs, attractions, weather, activities and safety were all taken into account to determine the rankings.

Atlanta and its metro area claimed the top spot, followed by Washington D.C. and Orlando. 

U.S. agrees to let immigrants denied visas under Trump ‘Muslim ban’ reapply for free

N early 25,000 migrants who were denied U.S. visas under President Donald Trump’s “Muslim ban” can reapply for free under an agreement between immigrant groups and the Biden administration that has been approved by a federal judge in San Francisco. 

Trump — who declared during his 2016 campaign that “Islam hates us” and that he would prohibit all Muslim immigration to the United States — released his first version of the travel ban a few days after taking office, barring U.S. entry from seven predominantly Muslim countries. Federal courts rejected it as an act of discrimination based on religion and nationality, and also blocked a slightly scaled-down version issued two months later.

His final version, in September 2017, banned most U.S. entry of migrants from five predominantly Muslim nations — Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen — or from North Korea and of officials from Venezuela. The Supreme Court allowed it to take effect in December 2017, and ruled 5-4 in June 2018  that Trump had acted within his authority to determine that admission of certain “classes of aliens” would harm the national interest. 

In the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts said Trump had acted out of “national security concerns” and was not discriminating against Muslims. 

President Joe Biden repealed Trump’s order after taking office in 2021, but that didn’t help the migrants who had been unable to get visas while the ban was in effect. Immigration advocates accused the administration of “foot-dragging,” and U.S. District Judge James Donato agreed.

Justice Department lawyers agreed to a settlement in early 2023 and then “abruptly backtracked,” Donato said in a  decision in March allowing the immigrants to proceed with their case. He said the administration’s lawyers then agreed to allow no-cost reapplications by thousands of previously denied immigrants, only to declare at a later hearing that they had never agreed to a settlement.

“This is an egregious record of poor performance by the government,” Donato wrote. “This conduct has hobbled the fair administration of justice.”

On Wednesday, the judge approved the final settlement. It allows anyone from Iran, Libya, Somaia, Syria, Yemen, North Korea or Venezuela who was denied a visa under Trump’s policy to reapply during the next year, without having to pay a fee. Donato said immigrants would be notified by phone and email of their eligibility to apply, and that notice would also be posted in English, Arabic and Farsi on the government’s travel.state.gov website.

“Despite the rescission of the Muslim Ban, the lingering effects continue to haunt countless individuals who have been trapped in this situation for far too long,” Paris Etemadi Scott, an attorney with Pars Equality Center, one of the groups that took part in the settlement, said in a statement. “This agreement offers a glimmer of hope, providing a clear pathway for visa reconsideration.”

Participants said the case has become more urgent with the possibility that Trump will be elected again in November. He has said that if he wins,  he would expand his previous ban and would exclude refugees from Gaza.

“My child turned six in February and has never met her grandparents because of these unfair denials,” Maral Tabrizi, a parent taking part in the case, said in a statement released by her lawyers. “President Biden ended the Muslim Ban on his first day in office, and still former President Trump is threatening to bring it back. With this federal court ruling, we’re making it unmistakable that the harms remain, and that there’s a clear, simple solution.”

Reach Bob Egelko: [email protected]; Twitter: @BobEgelko

Peru's president to visit China in June, possible beef exports on agenda, minister says

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New Dutch government will aim to 'opt out' of EU asylum rules

The incoming Dutch government led by nationalist Geert Wilders' PVV party will aim to pursue its curbs on immigration by opting out of European Union migration rules, setting up a clash with Brussels before it has even taken office.

German authorities banned a pro-Palestinian group on Thursday for its alleged support of Hamas and police raided properties to confiscate devices and documents, the interior minister of North-Rhine Westphalia said.

Vietnam's Communist Party on Thursday added four new member to its Politburo, the most powerful decision-making body in the country, state media reported.