US-bound plane diverts to Canada over Ebola alert
Rob Gillies
Toronto: U.S. Customs and Border Protection said an Air France flight bound for Detroit was diverted to Montreal after a passenger from the Democratic Republic of Congo “accidentally” boarded a plane in Paris due to flight restrictions related to the Ebola outbreak.
A spokesman for the agency said the passenger “should not have boarded” the plane on Wednesday (French time) due to entry restrictions imposed to reduce the risk of the spread of Ebola.
“Authorities took decisive action and prohibited the plane carrying the passenger from landing at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport and instead diverted it to Montreal, Canada,” the spokesperson said in an email.
Air France said the Congolese passenger was denied entry to the United States due to new regulations requiring passengers from certain countries, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to enter only through Washington, D.C.
The Department of Homeland Security also said that starting Thursday, all U.S. citizens and permanent residents who have been in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda or South Sudan in the past 21 days must enter only through Washington Dulles International Airport for enhanced screening.
Craig Currie, a spokesman for the Public Health Agency of Canada, said American officials notified Canadian officials that the plane was denied entry due to temporary travel restrictions on people who had traveled to three African countries in the past 21 days.
Currie said a quarantine officer from the Canadian agency in Montreal assessed the traveler and determined he was asymptomatic. He said the person went back to Paris.
“Air France flight AFR378, along with all other passengers, continued on to its original destination, Detroit,” Currie said in an email.
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the Ebola outbreak a public health emergency of international concern on Sunday. The outbreak is linked to the Bundibugyo virus, and there is no vaccine or medicine available for it.
The strain, which is rarer than other viruses that cause Ebola disease, spread undetected for weeks after the first known death, prompting authorities to test for a more common Ebola virus.
While experts say the outbreak is much larger than officially reported, health workers and aid groups are struggling to respond. Neighboring Uganda has 148 suspected deaths and nearly 600 suspected cases, with two cases including one death, according to the UN.
The epidemic is likely much larger
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was “deeply concerned about the scale and speed of the outbreak” and that the number of cases was likely much higher than the official number of cases. The WHO’s chief in the Democratic Republic of Congo said the outbreak could last at least two months.
People in the Democratic Republic of Congo set fire to an Ebola treatment center in a town at the center of the outbreak in the country’s east on Thursday after they were prevented from retrieving the body of a local man, an eyewitness and a senior police official said, as fear and anger grew over a health crisis that doctors were struggling to contain.
The arson attack at Rwampara Hospital in Bunia reflects the challenges faced by healthcare workers trying to contain the disease with strict measures that may clash with local traditions, such as funeral rites. The virus has been spreading for weeks in a region where adequate health facilities are lacking and many people are moving to escape armed conflict.
The bodies of Ebola victims can be highly contagious and can lead to further spread of the disease as people prepare bodies for burial and gather for funerals. The dangerous business of burying suspected victims is carried out by the authorities wherever possible, which can be met with protests from the victims’ families and friends.
The center in Bunia was burned down by angry teenagers trying to retrieve the body of a friend who apparently died of Ebola, a witness told The Associated Press by phone.
Alexis Burata, a student who said he was in the area, said, “The police intervened to calm the situation, but unfortunately they failed.” “The youth eventually set the center on fire. That’s the situation.”
An AP journalist saw people breaking into the center and setting fire to objects inside, as well as what appeared to be the body of at least one Ebola victim stored there. Aid workers escaped from the treatment center in vehicles.
Ebola is spread to humans through contact with bodily fluids such as vomit, blood, feces, or semen. Symptoms include fever, vomiting, diarrhea, muscle pain, and sometimes internal and external bleeding.
There is no vaccine or medication for the Bundibugyo strain, and an expert said this week it will be at least six to nine months before a vaccine is available.
On Thursday, the M23 rebel group, which controls parts of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, reported one person had died of the disease near the city of Bukavu, about 500 kilometers south of the outbreak’s epicenter in Ituri Province.
This was the first case confirmed in South Kivu Province, and another case was reported there later in the day. Previously, cases were reported only in Ituri and North Kivu provinces and neighboring Uganda.
The virus spread undetected for weeks after the first known death in late April as Congolese health officials tested for a different Ebola virus that is more widely responsible for outbreaks in the country. According to the World Health Organization, health officials have not yet found “patient zero.”
Anaïs Legand, an expert on viral hemorrhagic fever at the World Health Organization, said the extent of the outbreak so far suggests it “probably started a few months ago.”
