The airports are: JFK International Airport in New York, Washington-Dulles International Airport, Newark Liberty International Airport, Chicago-O’Hare International Airport, and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
As many as 145 people from Uganda each day already land at those airports. There are no direct flights from Uganda to the United States.
Ebola virus is a rare and often fatal disease hemorrhagic disease that causes fever, headache, muscle and joint pain, fatigue, loss of appetite, and gastrointestinal symptoms, as well as unexplained bleeding. Unlike Covid-19, the virus is not transmitted by airborne droplets, but is highly contagious. Spread by direct contact with bodily fluids, including blood, urine, feces, saliva, or other secretions of a person who has symptoms of the disease or has died; Contaminated objects such as infected animals or needles, according to the CDC.
There are no known cases in the United States, and the risk to the public is low, according to a government official.
Uganda is conducting exit screening for the virus, and other African countries in the region are also screening arrivals for symptoms of the virus.
According to the CDC, there have been no cases of the new Sudanese strain of Ebola outside of Uganda, where 44 confirmed cases, 10 confirmed deaths and 20 probable deaths from the virus have been identified since September. The health agency said this is the fifth outbreak of the Sudanese strain of the virus in Uganda since 2000.
there is vaccine against the Zaire strain of the virusIt caused two major outbreaks in Africa – in West Africa from 2014 to 2016 and in the Democratic Republic of Congo from 2018 to 2020 – sickening tens of thousands of people. However, a vaccine in development for the Sudanese strain has not yet been tested and there is no treatment for the disease.
During the 2014-2016 outbreak in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, 11 people were treated for Ebola in the United States, two of whom died. Of those cases, 9 were brought into the country, and the other two were medical workers who were infected while caring for a man who contracted the disease. Both workers have recovered.
