Body temperature screening at Changi Airport (Photo Credit: AsiaOne.com)
NAN – An infection control specialist, and president of Behavioural-based Improvement Solutions in
Atlanta, Sean Kaufman, on Friday said people who contracted Ebola in West Africa could get through
airport screenings and onto a plane.
Mr. Kaufman said that more must be done to identify infected travellers who could lie and take a lot of
ibuprofen to beat the airport authorities.
“People can take ibuprofen to reduce their fever enough to pass screening, and why wouldn’t they?
“If it will get them on a plane so they can come to the United States and get effective treatment after
they’re exposed to Ebola, wouldn’t you do that to save your life? ‘’ he said.
Reports said on Thursday that the first Ebola patient to be diagnosed in the United States had lied on
a questionnaire at the Monrovia airport about his exposure to an Ebola patient.
He flew to Brussels and then Dulles airport outside Washington, D.C., before landing in Dallas on
Sept. 20.
The traveller, Thomas Duncan, had no symptoms when he left Liberia, and fever scans there had
shown a normal body temperature of 97.3 degrees Fahrenheit, U.S. health officials said.
He therefore could not have been identified through examination as carrying the Ebola virus.
His arrival and hospitalisation in Dallas have underscored how much U.S. authorities are relying on
their counterparts in West African countries to screen passengers and contain the worst Ebola
outbreak on record.
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