U.S. imposes entry controls as Ebola spreads in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC); travelers must submit stay records

[Financial News] With the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in central Africa, continuing unabated, the U.S. government has begun restricting travelers. U.S. public health authorities plan to require arriving international passengers to provide proof that they have not visited the DRC.
The U.S. political news outlet The Hill reported this on the 22nd (local time), citing an internal document from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC is reportedly set to require all passengers on flights arriving in the United States from abroad, starting on the 3rd of next month, to submit a written or electronic document showing that they have neither visited nor stayed in the DRC within the past 21 days.
In May, the CDC barred foreign nationals with a record of having stayed in the DRC within the 21 days before their departure from boarding commercial flights to the United States. In July, it expanded the measure to cover all travelers, including U.S. nationals.
The measure making submission of this certificate mandatory is seen as an effort to further strengthen these pre-entry screening procedures.
On May 17, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC)” due to the spread of Ebola in the DRC and the Republic of Uganda. The Ebola virus has recently been spreading rapidly to neighboring countries, including Nigeria and the Republic of Kenya.
In a statement in May, the WHO noted that there were no approved treatments or vaccines for the Ebola virus spreading in this outbreak. However, it said the outbreak did not meet the criteria for a global pandemic. The DRC has experienced 17 Ebola outbreaks in total, including the current one, since the virus was first identified in 1976. Most previous outbreaks were caused by the Zaire lineage, but this one was identified as the relatively rare Bundibugyo lineage.
[email protected] Park Jong-won Reporter