WASHINGTON — The U.S. airline industry worked Thursday to tamp down fears that its jetliners might provide a pipeline for the lethal Ebola virus that is ravaging parts of West Africa to hop across the Atlantic to the United States.
That fear was heightened Wednesday on news that a man who flew through Washington Dulles International Airport on Sept. 20 on his way to visit family in Texas was diagnosed with the illness days after arriving in Dallas.
“The big thing about this virus is that it isn’t spread by air,” said Perry Flint, spokesman for the International Air Transport Association, a trade group that represents about 240 airlines worldwide. “According to the World Heath Organization, the risk of transmission during air travel is very low.”
Flint pointed out that the man, identified by relatives as Thomas Eric Duncan, did not show symptoms of the illness until well after he landed in Dallas. He is the first person to be diagnosed with the Ebola virus in the United States.
Texas health officials have ordered four members of a family that Thomas Eric Duncan was staying with in Dallas to remain in their home, and they’ve posted law enforcement outside to be sure.
Federal and Texas health officials are reaching out to about 100 people to determine if they have had contact with the Ebola patient hospitalized in Dallas.
“It’s not contagious until it’s symptomatic, and the symptoms tend to be such that typically the traveler does not feel like traveling,” Flint said. “And the symptoms tend to be recognizable.”
Ebola is spread by contact with the blood or other bodily fluids of a person sick with the illness. The early symptoms resemble an extreme case of the flu — high fever, headache, aching joints, weakness, stomach pain and loss of appetite.
On his journey from Liberia to Texas, Duncan changed planes in Brussels and at Dulles in northern Virginia before arriving in Dallas on Sept. 20. It was not until four days later that he began experiencing abdominal pain and a fever.
Ebola “is only contagious if the person is experiencing active symptoms,” said Jean Medina, spokeswoman for the U.S. trade group Airlines for America. “There is no need for panic. There is virtually no risk to air travelers, no matter where you fly.”
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) can bar U.S. carriers from flying to countries where passengers face certain risks, but the agency is unlikely to halt flights to West African nations without CDC guidance and a White House directive. Some foreign airlines — including Air France and British Airways — suspended service in August to African nations hit by Ebola.
Three of the largest U.S. carriers — United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and American Airlines — serve the West African region where Ebola has surfaced, but those flights, to Lagos in Nigeria and Accra in Ghana, require connections through European cities and often involve handing off service to foreign-flag carriers not governed by FAA directives.
Passengers boarding flights in West Africa are being screened for elevated temperatures and other Ebola symptoms.
Airlines flying to the United States are allowed to turn away passengers they fear might be carrying contagious diseases that could spread during the flight.
If a passenger falls ill with certain symptoms or dies aboard an international flight bound for the United States, the pilot is required by law to notify the CDC before the plane arrives.
According to CDC guidelines, flight crews should follow routine infection control precautions if they suspect a passenger is ill, including wearing protective garments in dealing with the passenger.
“The risk of spreading Ebola to passengers or crew on an aircraft is low because Ebola spreads by direct contact with infected body fluids. Ebola does NOT spread through the air like flu,” the CDC writes in its guidelines.
Flight crews are instructed to ask sick travelers whether they were in a country with an Ebola outbreak.
“Even if the person has been in a country with Ebola, cabin crew won’t know for certain what type of illness a sick traveler has. Therefore, cabin crew should follow routine infection control precautions for all travelers who become sick during flight, including managing travelers with respiratory illness to reduce the number of droplets released into the air,” the CDC says.
The CDC said that if an Ebola case is confirmed to have been on a flight, the agency will step in to perform an assessment and inform passengers who may have been exposed.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Ebola toll
The current outbreak in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea has infected 7,718 people and killed 3,338, the World Health Organization said. “There are few signs yet that the Ebola virus disease epidemic in West Africa is being brought under control,” the WHO said in a report Wednesday.
