WHO urges screening of travelers to contain Ebola outbreak

African nations hit hard by the Ebola outbreak should start screening all passengers leaving international airports, seaports and major ground crossings, the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommended recently.
The United Nations' health agency reiterated that the risk of passengers transmitting the Ebola virus during air travel is low. Still, anyone with an illness or symptoms typical of the highly virulent disease should not be allowed to travel unless it is for appropriate medical care, the agency said in a statement.
Symptoms of Ebola include a sudden fever, intense weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat. This is followed by vomiting, diarrhoea, rash, poor kidney and liver function and, in some cases, both internal and external bleeding.
Unlike diseases such as tuberculosis or flu, Ebola is not spread by breathing air from an infected person. Transmission requires direct contact with blood, secretions, organs or other body fluids of infected living or dead persons or animals, the agency said.
"Travelers are, in any event, advised to avoid all such contacts and routinely practice careful hygiene, like hand washing," the agency said.
The latest WHO figures put the death toll from the outbreak at nearly 1,070, with approximately 2,000 confirmed cases. At this point, Ebola cases have been reported in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and, to a lesser extent, Nigeria. But, the magnitude of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa may be far greater than current statistics indicate, WHO officials reported.
Ebola has a mortality rate approaching 90%, according to WHO officials.