United States airports tighten Ebola checks on West African travellers
New York international gateway first to introduce the latest system, to be followed by others
Medical teams at a New York airport, armed with Ebola questionnaires and temperature guns, have begun screening travellers from three West African countries as US health authorities intensified efforts to stop the spread of the virus.
John F. Kennedy Airport (JFK) is the first of five in the United States to toughen screening of travellers from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the countries that have seen most of the deaths from the outbreak, which has claimed more than 4,000 lives.
Nearly all visitors from those countries arrive at JFK, Newark Liberty, Washington Dulles, Chicago O'Hare and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta. The new procedures will begin at the other four airports on Thursday.
Mohamed Dabo, 22, of Indiana, who arrived at JFK from Guinea after a stopover in Paris, said he was surprised by the intensity of the screening.
"I don't really know what was going on in there but it was kind of crazy," he said. "I sat down there for two hours."
Edward Lama Wonkeryor, 60, a professor of communications and African studies at a Liberian university, said going through the enhanced screening was educational for him, but he said the push to stop Ebola was stigmatising West Africans.
