Amid an outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the US is set to make it mandatory for air passengers entering the country to furnish an attestation saying they have not been to the DRC in the last 21 days.
Reuters reported it first citing a memo from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that they accessed. The report says that the new CDC rule will take effect starting November 3.
Once it takes effect, travelers to US will have to furnish an attestation, either paper or digital, saying that they were not in the DRC in the last 21 days. The CDC has started holding briefings with the airlines on how to comply with the restriction, the report added.
However, as of now, the CDC has not officially released a notification to that effect.
When the Ebola outbreak first started earlier this year, the CDC in May made a rule that prohibited entry of passengers into the US if they had been to the DRC in the last three weeks. The law was extended to also include US citizens in July.
The November 3 memo would mark further tightening of Ebola screening by US authorities amid the worsening situation in DRC.
{{/usCountry}}The November 3 memo would mark further tightening of Ebola screening by US authorities amid the worsening situation in DRC.
{{/usCountry}}Also read: Ebola outbreak may be four times larger than official data estimates: WHO
Africa Ebola Outbreak 'Complex': WHO
The Ebola outbreak in DRC has killed more than 4,000 people out of over 9,000 confirmed cases in the country. Nigeria and Kenya have also been affected. Nigeria said on Tuesday that the active case in the country was imported from Uganda, sparking outbreak fears in Uganda.
Uganda has denied that the case, which happened to a Uganda-born wife of a Nigerian diplomat, entered from Uganda even though she was holidaying there. Uganda was declared Ebola-free by the World Health Organization in August.
Also read: Nigeria confirms Ebola case in patient who arrived from Uganda
"It's preposterous to suggest that just because someone was holidaying in Uganda, which by the way has no cases of Ebola, is reason enough to drag us into a conversation about Ebola in Nigeria," and Ugandan government spokesman told AFP.
WHO regional director Mohamed Janabi described it as a "more complex outbreak landscape" than what the continent has seen before.