Washington:
Five US airports will begin screening the temperatures of passengers arriving from West Africa as the United States ramps up its response to a deadly Ebola outbreak, officials said Wednesday.
"The vast majority of people" coming from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone -- the three countries hit hardest by the epidemic -- will be screened, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.
The airports implementing the measures are John F. Kennedy International in New York, Washington Dulles International, Chicago O'Hare International, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International and Newark Liberty International in New Jersey.
Together, the five hubs are the destination for 94 percent of people traveling to the United States from the three most affected countries.
"The thing that's important for people to understand is, we continue to have a lot of confidence in the screening measures that are already in place and had been in place for some time now," Earnest said.
The announcement came just hours after the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States -- and the first outside the African continent -- was said to have died at a hospital in Texas.
Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian citizen, had traveled from Liberia to Texas to visit family in September.
The Ebola epidemic has killed nearly 3,500 people in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone this year.
The virus is spread through close contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person, or by touching the corpse of a person who has died of Ebola, experts say.
US hospitals in Nebraska and Georgia have successfully treated and released three American missionaries who were infected with Ebola in West Africa.
"The vast majority of people" coming from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone -- the three countries hit hardest by the epidemic -- will be screened, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.
The airports implementing the measures are John F. Kennedy International in New York, Washington Dulles International, Chicago O'Hare International, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International and Newark Liberty International in New Jersey.
Together, the five hubs are the destination for 94 percent of people traveling to the United States from the three most affected countries.
"The thing that's important for people to understand is, we continue to have a lot of confidence in the screening measures that are already in place and had been in place for some time now," Earnest said.
The announcement came just hours after the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States -- and the first outside the African continent -- was said to have died at a hospital in Texas.
Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian citizen, had traveled from Liberia to Texas to visit family in September.
The Ebola epidemic has killed nearly 3,500 people in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone this year.
The virus is spread through close contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person, or by touching the corpse of a person who has died of Ebola, experts say.
US hospitals in Nebraska and Georgia have successfully treated and released three American missionaries who were infected with Ebola in West Africa.
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