With a new outbreak of the Ebola virus continuing to spread across three Central African countries, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) put in place a new entry ban on non-citizens who traveled to Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo or South Sudan in the last 21 days.
Citizens of the latter two countries are already included in the full travel ban put in place by the Trump administration earlier in the year but the new restrictions are specifically related to the spread of the virus known to cause a fever so high it leads to internal hemorrhage.
The latest numbers show at least 600 reported cases and 139 deaths in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the first recorded death in Uganda. The U.S. entry ban has been put in place for the next 30 days at which point it will be either repealed or extended.
Air France stops in Montreal to take off passenger from Ebola-stricken country
As a result of the new entry rules, an Air France plane going from Paris to Detroit on May 21 was redirected to Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport (YUL) over concerns that a passenger who may have been exposed to the virus would not have been able to enter the U.S.
According to a statement from a Public Health Agency of Canada representative, the passenger coming from the Democratic Republic of Congo disembarked in Montréal and evaluated by a quarantine officer before being flown back to Paris. The rest of the passengers on Flight AF378 went back to Detroit after a two-hour delay.
Related: U.S. bans entry for non-citizens who visited these three countries
A statement from U.S. Customs and Border Protection said that the passenger boarded the plane in error and was disembarked in Montreal as Canada currently has no Ebola-related travel restrictions.
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“The passenger should not have boarded the plane”: CBP on Air France passenger
“The passenger should not have boarded the plane,” the CBP statement says. “CBP took decisive action and prohibited the flight carrying that traveler from landing at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport, and instead, diverted to Montreal.”
An Air France spokesperson said that “there was no medical emergency on board” but “like all airlines, Air France is required to comply with the entry requirements of the countries it serves” and remove a passenger who had been coming from a country banned from entering the U.S.
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While the World Health Organization (WHO) and other major health authorities in different countries currently rate the global Ebola risk as very low, the rare Bundibugyo strain is causing significant concern due to the rapid spread and lack of a vaccine.
The rapid spread is also straining public health resources in countries that already have weakened infrastructure due to decades of armed conflict.
The WHO declared the latest outbreak a public health emergency of international concern on May 17 but said that it does not currently classify to reach the level of a global pandemic.
“WHO assesses the risk of the epidemic as high at the national and regional levels and low at the global level,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said to journalists at a press conference in Geneva.
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