Ebola virus disease: temperature checks for travelers?

Abstract

Mohamed Farouk Allam1,21 Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Cordoba, Cordoba, Spain2 Department of Community, Environmental and Occupational Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University, Cairo, EgyptKey words: Ebola, Ebola hemorrhagic fever, airport, fever, controlAddress for correspondence: M. FaroukAllam, Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Cordoba, Avda. Menendez Pidal, s/n Cordoba 14004, Spain. E-mail: fm2faahm@uco.esRecently, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) expressed confidence in screening measures being taken at the international airports in West Africa to prevent the spread of Ebola virus disease. Temperature checks for travelers in West Africa have emerged as the favoured front-lme, last-minute defense for containing the spread of Ebola vims disease. In concordance, the World Health Organization (WHO) added temperature checks to the list of measures to be taken at airports, seaports and border crossings for travelers arriving from West Africa (1).Do we really believe that temperature checks for travelers could control the spread of Ebola vims disease?In 2009, WHO recommended temperature checks for travelers at all national and international airports dining influenza A (H1N1) pandemic.Should we apply the same preventive measure to control the spread of Ebola vims disease? No doubt, tins measure could not be applied to control the spread of Ebola vims disease because of several reasons:First, the typical incubation period for influenza is 1-4 days (average 2 days), meanwhile the incubation period for Ebola vims disease is 2 to 21 days (average 14 days). A patient may travel for weeks without fever or any other symptom during the long incubation period (up to 6 weeks in some reported cases) (2).Second, detecting a traveler with fever will produce unnecessary alarm in the whole airport and among travelers since, according to WHO and CDC, tins traveler should be isolated until having negative results for Ebola vims disease (1,2).Third, fever is a non-specific symptom of many infectious diseases including common cold. We expect, as usually, many cases of influenza vims infection characterized by high fever (>38 °C) during autumn and winter months.Fourth, controls for body temperature at airports did not seem to be effective in preventing the influenza A (H IN 1-2009) spread. In 2009, a study was done at Naiita International Airport (Japan) to retrospectively assess the feasibility of detecting influenza cases upon relying solely on fever screening. …