Banishing Ebola By Banning Travel?

"I wouldn't be surprised at all if we saw a case of Ebola in Canada in the weeks or months ahead."
"[...Entry screening of travellers may be reassuring to the public] but it's unlikely to have any meaningful impact in terms of preventing the introduction of Ebola virus into Canada."
"So traveller screening, whether it's exit screening or entry screening, isn't likely to have a big impact in terms of mitigating the spread of this disease."
"This is the type of outbreak where many might feel compelled to try and close down their borders and lock the disease out. That's really almost impossible. Source control is the real priority right now."
Dr. Kamran Khan, infectious disease physician, St. Michael's Hospital, Toronto

In the United States pressure is rising to have federal authorities ban flights to and from the affected regions of West Africa; Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea where there has arisen a total of 8,216 confirmed cases of Ebola resulting in 4,555 deaths to date, according to the World Health Organization. Projections into the near future -- a mere two months ahead -- conjecture the potential of 1.4-million Ebola cases diagnosed by the end of 2014.

By that time, should it occur, and the international effort to curtail the spread fail, there will be any number of Ebola cases diagnosed in Europe and North America, the Middle East and Asia, as well as an inevitable spread to the rest of Africa. That's the absolute worst-case scenario. With the belated alarm raised by the World Health Organization and the alarm felt around the world, it is entirely possible that well before that time the outbreak will be contained. And that is most certainly what everyone hopes for.

Reuters   A health worker is reflected in a mirror as he prepares protective equipment in Sierra Leone’s capital city, Freetown. Cuba has dispatched 165 health workers to the country to combat the Ebola outbreak.

Nations outside Africa are sending volunteer medical staff to help in the massive effort to stem the Ebola tide. Cuba, famous for its 'barefoot doctors' and its propensity over the years to send its physicians abroad to aid less developed countries when health scares such as this arises, has pledged to send 300 health workers to aid in the fight against the spread of Ebola.

There are any number of courageous, dedicated health workers from around the international community who have travelled to West Africa to aid how and wherever they can at risk to themselves. If a travel ban into and out of the countries involved occurs, the ban would make it impossible for such international volunteers to reach the sites requiring their assistance. Nor would medical equipment be permitted entry, further complicating matters.

Any medical personnel from abroad who become infected would then be forced to remain where they are, without the more advanced hygienic methods used in the West available to them, where water is plentiful and the luxury of technical advances can be applied, along with whatever ameliorating protocols can be advanced, from using blood transfusions from those who have survived Ebola, to experimental drugs.

An analysis published in the medical journal The Lancet, interpreted the expected number of internationally exported cases of Ebola virus, based on epidemic conditions and flights from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The analysis team projects that three travellers infected with Ebola virus will depart their affected regions on commercial flights very month, on average. And the risk of transmission increases the longer the Ebola outbreak persists, and grows, according to study co-author Dr. Kamran Khan.

In their bid to estimate the potential for Ebola spread internationally Dr. Khan and his colleagues examined the size of each country's population, the number of active cases reported and the volume of outbound travellers leaving those affected areas. The research team estimated that for commercial airports where direct flights from Guinea, Liberia or Sierra Leone are absent, on average 2,512 travellers would have to be screened to identify one traveller originating from one of the three countries.

While exit screening takes place in the three affected countries, cases are certain to be missed, with the reality of the long incubation period -- up to 21 days -- when people may be infected, but do not yet show any symptoms, which was just what occurred with Thomas Eric Duncan whose Ebola fever showed up days after he landed in Texas, and who ended up contaminating a large swath of area, from the plane he arrived in to the apartment he stayed within to the Texas Presbyterian Health Hospital where transmission infected two health-care workers.