Travelers from Mali will no longer be singled out for enhanced Ebola-virus screening at U.S. airports, a pair of government agencies said Monday in a sign the government is willing to scale down its precautions once a country eradicates the disease from within its borders.
The Homeland Security Department and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will remove Mali from its list of Ebola-affected nations on Tuesday, because it will have been two incubation cycles, or 42 days, since the last Ebola patient in Mali had contact with someone who was not wearing protective equipment.
However, anyone who arrived in the U.S. from Mail prior to Jan. 6 must finish out their 21-day period of active monitoring and report any symptoms.
American officials singled out travelers from Mali after a flare-up of Ebola cases in the West Africa country late last year. Several patients, including a grand imam from Guinea, had traveled into Mali for treatment, sparking transmission and several deaths.
The country contained the virus, but Ebola continues to rage in the hard-hit trio of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, where nearly 8,000 people have died during the outbreak, according to the CDC.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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