The 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa prompted many discussions about how to best prevent the global transmission and spread of Ebola. Sheldon H. Jacobson, PhD, a professor of computer science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has suggested an alternative for Ebola screening program for travelers.
Some have recommended the World Health Organization require exit screenings at airports for any passengers who depart from countries with Ebola transmission. Under this approach, passengers with a high-risk exposure to or symptoms of Ebola are denied boarding.
"With exit screening from such countries, out of approximately 80,000 departing travelers from August to November 2014, none were reported as symptomatic with Ebola," said Dr. Jacobson. "However, since the physical condition of a passenger can deteriorate during a long international flight, entry screening at destination countries was also instituted as an auxiliary precaution to prevent the entry of passengers with Ebola into their country."
Dr. Jacobson compares this method to finding a needle in a haystack. He and his fellow researchers published an alternative in the journal Preventive Medicine.
They suggested the CDC use a secondary risk level, such as the potential footprint for social contact tracing level of each individual. This method would require additional passenger input data, including a passenger's potential to conduct social contact tracing if they are not initially monitored or their movements are not initially restricted yet later become ill with Ebola.
"Although the implementation of the secondary risk level requires additional data collection costs and time, the potential societal and public health benefits may justify such expenditures and efforts," said Dr. Jacobson.
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