Washington Dulles International Airport has hired part-time staff screen travelers for the Ebola virus, an administrative coordinator at the Northern Virginia Emergency Medical Services Council (NVEMSC) told DailyMail.com.
NVEMSC as well as several other groups made job postings for screeners earlier this year, and the NVEMSC coordinator says that all of its positions have been filled.
It’s unclear if Dulles previously employed Ebola screeners.
In August, the calls for similar jobs began appearing unceremoniously on LinkedIn and Careerbuilder.com, made by several groups that appear to contract with the US government, including Caduceus Healthcare.
And the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health was recently in search of a nurse to oversee ‘biothreat responses,’ including to Ebola, reported the Epoch Times.
The spate of screener hirings follow the World Heath Organization’s (WHO) July declaration that Ebola is a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), only fifth time the agency has made the designation was introduced following the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak.
No cases linked to the current outbreak have been reported in the US, but the increased screenings come as the Bahamas announced yesterday that it is on ‘high alert’ for the arrival of Ebola.
Ebola screeners have been hired to test travelers to Dulles International Airport in Washington, DC, an administrative coordinator at the Northern Virginia Emergency Medical Services Council, which advertised screener jobs, told DailyMail.com
Since the current outbreak of the deadly virus began in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in August 2018, more than 3,000 people have been infected and over 2,000 have died.
There have been no reports of Americans infected as a result of the current outbreak, though in 2014, four US citizens contracted the disease.
However, the disease has spread to Uganda and Guinea, the World Health Organization, a key trigger for the WHO to declare the virus a PHEIC.
Now, the Washington, DC hub is looking for someone with an emergency medical services license, training as an EMT, paramedic or nurse and experience working with bloodborne pathogens to screen passengers for Ebola.
However, ‘no direct contact with screened passengers is required,’ according to the job posting, suggesting that the screeners are examining blood or perhaps saliva samples from travelers.
On the contrary, the Daily Star reported a similar job posting that said the job will entail ‘screening passengers that have traveled back from Ebola-affected nations.
‘This will include checking vital signs, temperature and having passengers filling [sic] out questionnaires.’
So far this outbreak, there has been little immediate threat of Ebola in the US.
During the 2014-2016 outbreak – the largest in history, sickening over 28,600 people and killing over 11,300, primarily in West Africa – the US played a significant role in the response.
One Liberian national, a doctor, who visited the US during the outbreak to visit family in Dallas, Texas, was diagnosed with and ultimately died of Ebola.
Two nurses that treated the man also contracted the virus, which causes diarrhea, fever and body aches in its early stages, but later damages the organs and prevents the blood from clotting.
Another physician who had been working in Guinea in West Africa with Doctors Without Borders was also diagnosed with the disease upon his return to New York City.
But he was ultimately released from the hospital and no new cases have been reported on US soil since.
When the DRC declared its outbreak on August 1, 2018, the US immediately deployed emergency responders.
But the area has been one mired in conflict and continues to be and, as a result the US has intermittently pulled back its staff from locations in need.
In fact, one treatment clinic was even attacked in February of this year.
Conflict, displaced people, distrust of medicine and even beliefs that Ebola is an elaborate hoax have delayed aid and vaccination against the virus, allowing it to spread in the region and even beyond borders.
So far, the disease has mostly been confined to West Africa.
Cases have been reported in: Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, South Sudan, Uganda, Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria, according to the CDC.
But that doesn’t mean other locations around are unconcerned.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian, international aid workers are travelling to the Bahamas, prompting the government to set the country’s Ebola risk level to ‘high.’
Japan, expecting an even more unusual deluge travelers for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, went so far as to intentionally import samples the Ebola virus – as well as several other highly contagious viruses – in order to develop accurate tests, vaccines, treatments and responses to potential bioterror attacks.
