EU may boost exit screening in Ebola-hit states
(BRUSSELS) - European health ministers agreed Thursday to launch an immediate review of the screening of passengers departing Ebola-hit countries in West Africa and boost them if the measures are found to be failing.
The ministers also agreed at a meeting in Brussels to coordinate measures at entry points to the 28-nation European Union, although any decision on screening rests with individual countries, health commissioner Tonio Borg said.
Europe is increasingly jittery about the possible spread of a disease that has already killed nearly 4,500 people, even if there has only been one case of the disease being transmitted within its borders.
Borg said the European Commission, the EU executive, "will immediately undertake an audit of exit screening systems in place in the affected countries... to check their effectiveness and reinforce them as necessary".
The review of the exit screening in Liberia, Guinea and Sierre Leone will be conducted in coordination with the World Health Organization, he said.
It will also allow EU officials to set up a database to better trace people who may be carrying the deadly virus from those countries, he added.
Officials said the information sharing system, sought mainly by Spain, could be based on visas acquired by citizens from the three worst-hit countries.
Italian Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin told the same news conference he wanted the database plan in place "as soon as possible because it will remain the best way for us to follow the movement of passengers".
The ministers also agreed to "coordinate national measures" at EU arrival points such as having common protocols and procedures on passenger questionaires.
- 'Narrow window of opportunity' -
Several health workers have been evacuated back to Europe from Africa with Ebola, but the only recorded case of transmission on the continent so far is a Spanish nurse in Madrid.
The EU needs to improve the distribution of information to travellers from the affected countries so they "know what to do and where to go if symptoms arise," commissioner Borg said.
With the decision up to member states to decide what measures to take, the meeting was focused on coordinating efforts to stop the spread of the worst-ever outbreak of the virus, whose victims have almost all been in west Africa.
Borg said experts will hold a "workshop" in Brussels on November 4 "to exchange best practices on infection control" but reiterated the European position that an epidemic on the continent is highly unlikely.
The EU has meanwhile struggled to get member states to join an air evacuation scheme.
But Borg said the commission is expected to sign a deal in the next few weeks with the US State Department to use planes operated by the American government to evacuate any infected EU health workers.
Natalia Alonso, an official with the British-based humanitarian group Oxfam, criticised the EU meeting which drew 21 health ministers at short notice.
"Europe was more concerned about its border controls rather than what it should be doing to contain the spread of the disease in West Africa," Alonso said.
She said the EU should deploy more medical staff and equipment as well as military personnel in the next two weeks.
"Otherwise the EU will miss a very narrow window of opportunity to halt this epidemic," Alonso said.
EU nations have contributed aid worth about 450 million euros ($575 million) to Ebola-hit countries, including 180 million euros from the Commission, officials said.