PARIS (AA) – France is to start screening passengers arriving at airports from Ebola-stricken countries Saturday, as the number of deaths from the contagious virus approaches 4,500 worldwide.
Health Minister Marisol Touraine told French radio LCI-Radio Classique on Thursday that a medical team at Roissy airport will check passengers arriving on Air France’s daily flight from Conakry, Guinea – one of the three countries most affected by Ebola.
The examinations will be carried out with the support of the Red Cross and Civil Protection.
“Medical teams will check the temperature of passengers on the gateway before entering the airport,” said Touraine. “As long as there is no temperature, there is no risk of contagion. Someone who has been in Guinea and has no symptoms is not contagious.”
Touraine added that tighter control measures will also be in place on flights departing Paris to Conakry.Â
“The first precaution is to ensure that someone who has a fever does not go up in the plane,” she said, adding that the person will also have to leave his or her contact details.
There is “no Ebola cases in the French territory at this instant,” she underlined.
The announcement came a day after President Francois Hollande announced that France would set up a system to check passengers on flights from affected areas.
France joins Britain in being the only two European Union countries to announce checks for the virus at their main international airports, joining the United States and Canada worldwide.
EU health ministers are meeting in Brussels on Thursday to discuss measures to deal with the epidemic.
The World Health Organization said on October 14 that Ebola cases are likely to run to more than 9,000 in West Africa this week and the number of reported deaths had already reached 4,493.
Ebola is a deadly virus causing bleeding in the inner and outer parts of the human body. Once it spreads, it harms the immune system as well as organs and, ultimately, the patient suffers uncontrollable bleeding.
The virus spreads through skin contact, from the fluid of an infected animal and through touching contaminated needles or surfaces.
It gets its name from the Ebola River – which is close to a village in the Democratic Republic of Congo where the disease was first recorded.Â
It first appeared in Africa in 1976.
