How to Isolate Ebola and Prevent Additional Cases Arriving in the U.S.

Since the epidemic is localized in West Africa we must immediately ban all travel from West Africa.  This can easily be accomplished by not allowing anyone with a passport from those countries where Ebola is epidemic into the U.S..  Furthermore, to be cautious we should also ban all travel from neighboring countries as well.  This could and should be done today.

In addition, we need to begin a worldwide quarantine of 21 days for anyone traveling to the U.S.  This also can be easily accomplished:  Require a 2-step process to obtain a travel visa to the U.S..  Step 1--initial application for the U.S. Travel Visa would require applicants to appear, in person with photography and finger printing identification as well as temperature check.     Step 2--21 days following the initial application travellers will be issued a valid travel visa at the airport following identification verification and temperature check.  This could and should be done today.

There is a flaw with the procedures outlined above.  A non-infected person could apply for a travel visa, and then during the 21-day quarantine period become infected after day 14.  In this case an infected person could reach the U.S. undetected.   This scenario is possible but remote and orders of magnitude better than not having any quarantine at all.   Of course a more drastic action would ban all travel from any country until a supervised and enforced 21-day isolation had occurred.  At the time of writing this post this more drastic approach does not seem warranted.

Steven Keller, Ph.D.
New Jersey Medical School, Rutgers University