Rob Gillies
Toronto: An Air France flight bound for Detroit was diverted to Montreal after a passenger from the Democratic Republic of the Congo boarded a flight in Paris “in error” amid flight restrictions tied to the Ebola outbreak, US Customs and Border Protection has said.
A spokesperson for the agency said the passenger “should not have boarded” the plane on Wednesday (French time) due to entry restrictions put in place to reduce the risk of Ebola spreading.
Officials “took decisive action and prohibited the flight carrying that traveller from landing at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport, and instead, diverted to Montreal, Canada”, the spokesperson said in an email.
Air France said the Congolese passenger was denied entry to the US due to new regulations requiring travellers from certain countries, including DR Congo, to enter only through Washington, DC.
The Department of Homeland Security also said that as of Thursday, all US-bound American citizens and permanent residents who had been in DR Congo, Uganda, or South Sudan in the previous 21 days must enter only through Washington Dulles International Airport for enhanced screening.
Craig Currie, spokesman for the Public Health Agency of Canada, said American officials informed Canadian authorities that the plane was denied entry due to temporary travel restrictions on anyone who had travelled to the three African countries within the previous 21 days.
Currie said a quarantine officer from the Canadian agency in Montreal had assessed the traveller and determined they were asymptomatic. He said the person had flown back to Paris.
“Air France flight AFR378, along with all other passengers, continued to its original destination of Detroit,” Currie said in an email.
The World Health Organisation on Sunday declared the Ebola outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. The outbreak is linked to the Bundibugyo virus, and there is no available vaccine or medicine for it.
The strain, which is rarer than other viruses that cause Ebola disease, spread undetected for weeks following the first known death while authorities tested for a more common Ebola virus.
Health workers and aid groups are struggling to respond, as experts say the outbreak is much larger than officially reported. There are 148 suspected deaths and nearly 600 suspected cases so far, according to the United Nations, with two cases, including one death, in neighbouring Uganda.
Outbreak likely much larger
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was “deeply concerned about the scale and speed of the epidemic”, and it was likely much larger than the official case count. The WHO’s chief in DR Congo said the outbreak could last at least two months.
As fear and anger grow over a health crisis that doctors are struggling to contain, people in DR Congo set fire to an Ebola treatment centre in a town at the heart of the outbreak in the country’s east on Thursday after being stopped from retrieving the body of a local man, a witness and a senior police officer said.
The arson attack at the Rwampara Hospital in Bunia reflects the challenges of health workers trying to curb the disease with stringent measures that might clash with local customs, such as burial rites. The virus has been spreading for weeks in a region lacking adequate health facilities and where many people are on the move to escape armed conflicts.
The bodies of Ebola victims can be highly contagious and can lead to further spread of the disease when people prepare bodies for burial and gather for funerals. The dangerous work of burying suspected victims is being managed wherever possible by authorities, which can be met by protests from victims’ families and friends.
The centre in Bunia was burnt by youths who became angry while trying to retrieve the body of a friend who had apparently died of Ebola, according to a witness who spoke to the Associated Press by telephone.
“The police intervened to try to calm the situation, but unfortunately, they were unsuccessful,” said Alexis Burata, a student who said he was in the area. “The young people ended up setting fire to the centre. That’s the situation.”
An AP journalist saw people break into the centre and set fire to objects inside, and also to what appeared to be the body of at least one suspected Ebola victim that was being stored there. Aid workers fled the treatment centre in vehicles.
Ebola spreads in people through contact with bodily fluids such as vomit, blood, faeces or semen. Symptoms include fever, vomiting, diarrhoea, muscle pain and at times internal and external bleeding.
There is no vaccine or medicine for the Bundibugyo strain, and an expert said this week that it would be at least six to nine months before one would be available.
On Thursday, the M23 rebel group that controls parts of eastern DR Congo reported that a person had died of the disease near the city of Bukavu, about 500 kilometres south of the outbreak’s epicentre in Ituri Province.
It was the first case confirmed in South Kivu Province, and another case was reported there later in the day. Previously, cases had been reported only in Ituri and North Kivu provinces and in neighbouring Uganda.
The virus spread undetected for weeks following the first known death in late April as Congolese health authorities tested for a different Ebola virus, more commonly responsible for outbreaks in the country. Health officials have not yet found “patient zero”, according to the WHO.
The scale of the outbreak so far suggests it “started probably a couple of months ago”, said Anaïs Legand, a viral hemorrhagic fevers expert at the WHO.
