NEW YORK — More than 2,600 people have undergone the 21-day ritual ordered by the federal government to guard against cases of Ebola from entering the U.S. from West Africa.
Anyone who has traveled from four West African nations is monitored for three weeks for fever and other signs of the disease.
The program reaches the one-month mark Thursday, and so far, it hasn’t found any cases of Ebola.
It’s up to local officials to decide how to keep track of travelers who end up in their states and determine what, if any, restrictions to impose. Most checking is done through daily phone calls,
By all accounts, most travelers have been cooperative. Last week during a congressional hearing, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Tom Frieden said health officials lost track of “less than 1 percent” of the travelers.
Success varies from place to place, but overall more than 95 percent of travelers from the countries are contacted promptly and monitored daily.
“State and local health departments have really stepped up to the challenge,” said Randolph Daley, a CDC epidemiologist helping to coordinate the effort.
But there have been headaches. In the beginning, local health officials complained they were getting bad contact information. Officials had to send their disease detectives out to track down the travelers.
Monitoring is not the best way to control Ebola in the U.S., said Dr. Jay Varma, deputy commissioner for disease control at New York City’s health department. Better approaches would be sending medical help to West Africa to stop the epidemic and preparing U.S. hospitals to handle Ebola cases here, he said.
