Ebola: If not WHO, Who Will Issue Travel Restrictions Now?

The following reports at Quartz (QZ.com) ask the tougher questions that journalists should about the current Ebola outbreaks in Africa, and the implications of a symptomatic on a flight to Lagos, Nigeria, a city with many, many international flights:

Why Ebola Reaching Nigeria’s Largest City is a Whole New Level of Scary

35 Countries a Flight Away from Outbreak Zones

The professionalism and discipline required for passenger screeners to prevent Ebola from hitching rides on airliners is next to superhuman. Only barring non-essential passenger air travel from airports in countries with outbreaks will do the job.

Extreme measures are warranted with a disease as devastating as this. This is a new Ebola strain, and is not fully understood as yet.

Prevention is the only acceptable approach. Reactionary thinking will aid the virus in spreading, and in spreading, give it time to infect new animals, enter new vectors, and mutate in carriers.

Progress: France Sends Team to Monitor Passengers for Ebola at Guinea’s Conraky Airport

Today, Saturday, came the following report which I consider an intelligent approach to screening passengers before they get on flights from an ebola hot zone.

Now, hopefully we will see all other nation-states with flight destinations from West African nations with live ebola (and other egregious) outbreaks, sending monitoring teams that are equipped to quarantine would-be passengers at the Conraky airport who show febrile or other catastrophic, contagious viral disease symptoms.