US to screen all African summit delegates for Ebola: Obama
02 Aug 2014
In what might appear to some African countries as poor diplomacy, the US has announced that all delegates from African countries arriving in Washington for the first ever US-Africa summit will be screened for Ebola virus symptoms.
Announcing the move on Friday, President Barak Obama said Ebola "is something that we take very seriously".
"The delegates from the African countries that have even a marginal risk of having been exposed in some fashion, are all going to be screened," Obama said.
He said this outbreak was more aggressive than in the past, thus the procedures that the US has taken are "appropriate".
The leaders of Liberia and Sierra Leone, two of the three countries affected, have already cancelled their trip to Washington.
The US moves follow near-identical measures by the UK and other European countries, which are also putting in place strict Ebola checks.
This is the worst Ebola outbreak so far - according to the World Health Organisation (WHO); the disease has killed 729 people and affected 1,300 this year.
The virus originates from contact with certain infected animals, but is more widely spread in humans through exchange of bodily fluids.
It is obviously high time India took at least some steps in this regard. Hopefully, the union health ministry is seized of the matter considering the large number of Indian NRIs from Africa visit the country frequently.
