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The United States is restricting travel from countries in East Central Africa hit with an Ebola outbreak. All flights from the region will be routed to a single U.S. airport in a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. NPR's Pien Huang reports on the first days of the new policy.
PIEN HUANG, BYLINE: On Thursday morning, Michal Ruprecht went to Uganda's International Airport at 2 in the morning to catch a flight. When he got to the airline counter, he had a strange exchange.
MICHAL RUPRECHT: They asked me what my final destination was, and I told them Michigan. And they did this sort of double look and asked me, was I sure I was going to Michigan?
HUANG: Ruprecht is a medical student and freelance reporter. He was in Uganda working on stories for NPR. You will hear those stories later. For now, he was trying to get home to Michigan. The man at the counter showed him a memo from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
RUPRECHT: He tells me that I have to arrive at Washington Dulles International Airport. I think the first thing that was going through my head was denial. I wasn't sure if this was real.
HUANG: Ruprecht was one of the first passengers flying under a policy announced just hours before. All Americans returning from Uganda or South Sudan or the Democratic Republic of Congo had to travel to a single U.S. airport. The African countries have been hit by a growing Ebola outbreak. Ruprecht frantically rebooked his flights. When he arrived at Dulles Airport, after 20 hours of travel, he was flagged for extra screening.
RUPRECHT: They had these tarps put up that created these pseudo doctor office rooms.
HUANG: An official from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention brought him into one.
RUPRECHT: The first time he checked my temperature, he actually told me my temperature was a bit high. And he immediately asked me, am I nervous? I told him yes, and he retook my temperature a second time, and he told me, oh, now it's normal.
HUANG: A third temperature check was also normal, so they moved on to questions. Ruprecht confirmed he had no symptoms of Ebola and that he did not treat patients or attend any funerals in Uganda. They finished by taking his contact information.
RUPRECHT: It took 5 to 10 minutes. It was pretty quick. And I'll be honest, it was pretty anticlimactic. I expected some more things to happen.
HUANG: In a past Ebola epidemic, passengers flying from affected areas got thermometers and burner phones and strict instructions for next steps. Ruprecht got none of that, but he made his connecting flight home to Michigan. Dr. Laurie Forlano is state epidemiologist for Virginia.
LAURIE FORLANO: I think in the beginning of any response like this, at least from my personal perspective, a little chaos is part of the gig.
HUANG: She says the CDC is notifying states of returning passengers.
FORLANO: Since some people will be monitored or checked in on daily. Some will not require that frequency, and that's dependent upon their exposure risk.
HUANG: Forlano says they're ready for it, and they've done it before, but it's happening on top of other things Virginia is dealing with - a measles outbreak and monitoring for Hantavirus. The airport arrival policy applies to U.S. citizens and permanent residents. Others who have recently been in Ebola-affected countries can't come at all, according to a CDC order this week. Dr. Marty Cetron is former head of the CDC's Division of Global Migration and Quarantine.
MARTY CETRON: Travel bans rarely work in and of themselves, and when people feel like there's a restriction but they have a desperate need to travel, they will often find a way.
HUANG: Cetron managed the agency's policy during the 2014 Ebola epidemic, when they didn't stop travelers from coming. He says, viruses don't respect borders. To end the danger for real, any screening efforts in the U.S. must be combined with efforts to stop the outbreak at the source. Pien Huang, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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