Ebola screenings at airports

The Ebola virus has already claimed more than 4,000 lives, more than half of them in Liberia.

Now U.S. airports have begun screening for fevers in travellers coming from West Africa.

So far no indication it will come to Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, but in New York on Saturday airport staff started using no-touch thermometers to check for fever in anyone coming into the country from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Kennedy International was the first airport to start the screening.

Next week four other U.S. airports will start the screening.

There are no direct flights to Toronto from Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea, but federal officials say the will track travellers to their point of origin even if they’ve made several stops along the way.

Customers and border protection commissioner, R. Gil Kerlikowsk, says CBP is focused on protecting the public and has taken steps to ensure passengers with communicable diseases, like Ebola, are identified, isolated and quickly referred to medical personnel.

The World Health Organization says cases of Ebola are doubling every three to four weeks.

U.S. soldiers have arrived in Liberia and are setting up field hospitals to treat doctors and nurses.

Meanwhile at Oxford University in England, an Ebola vaccine is now being tested on human volunteers, a process that typically takes years but was shortened to just weeks.

The goal is to protect doctors and nurses so they can keep caring for the sick.

The vaccine can’t cure Ebola, but it could slow it down.

The Harper government is urging Canadians in West African countries hit by Ebola to get out while they can.