By Karla Sullivan
On Tuesday, January 6, 2015, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will remove Mali from the list of Ebola-affected nations subject to enhanced visa and port-of-entry screening.
Travelers from Mali will no longer be required to undergo enhanced screening and monitoring when entering the United States, nor will they be required to enter the country through the five designated airports that perform this screening. Also on January 6, CDC will remove the Alert Level 2 Travel Notice for Mali, which advised travelers to practice enhanced precautions when visiting that nation.
The United States will continue to support Mali’s Ebola prevention response and detection measures. Additionally, anyone traveling from Mali who arrived in the United States before January 6, 2015 must continue active monitoring and report any symptoms for 21 days after leaving Mali.
January 6 will mark two incubation cycles (21 days each) since the last patient in Mali had any contact with a person who was not wearing personal protective equipment (PPE). The last Ebola patient in Mali tested negative on December 5, 2014, and there are currently no active cases. Moreover, subsequent isolated cases of Ebola in Mali would not automatically require reinstitution of these measures, which are used only when there is a risk of widespread transmission.
The cases of Ebola in Bamako, Mali, were related to the ongoing Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Screening and monitoring measures remain in place for travelers entering the United States from those nations. Travel notices for Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone remain at a Warning Level 3 and advise travelers to avoid nonessential travel to the three countries with Ebola outbreaks.
And the latest new on Ebola testing was also released today. Chembio Diagnostics, Inc. (CEMI), a leader in point-of-care (POC) diagnostic tests for infectious diseases, today announced its progress in the development of DPP(R) Ebola and DPP(R) Febrile Illness Assays.
John Sperzel, Chembio’s Chief Executive Officer, commented, “We are pleased with the rapid development of our DPP(R) Ebola Assay. Our exclusive POC partnership with IBT has proven to be an important element of our strategy to quickly develop an Ebola test, as it provided access to well-characterized Ebola antibodies, BSL4 testing, and Ebola subject matter expertise. The results from initial laboratory testing, using real Ebola virus, look very promising pending field testing that will require additional approvals. Our goal is to provide DPP(R) Ebola and DPP(R) Febrile Illness Assays to the CDC and begin testing in West Africa during the first quarter of 2015, for which we are on track.”
