Screening people at airports for fever in an effort to identify possible Ebola victims is mostly a "reassurance thing," because symptoms in those affected by the disease aren't always evident, Dr. Zeke Emanuel told MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
A plan to screen travelers at five airports in the United States for fever and medical histories in an effort to identify travelers who could have Ebola was announced by the White House on Wednesday.
Emanuel said using that method wouldn't have identified Thomas Eric Duncan, who traveled to Dallas in September from Liberia and was diagnosed with the first confirmed case of Ebola in the country. Duncan died Wednesday in a Dallas hospital from the disease.
"I think it's mostly a reassurance thing," Emanuel said Thursday. "I think still we wouldn't have caught this man, because he didn't have a fever coming into the country. He developed it four days later."
The only thing the screenings would offer authorities would be to identify "people who have fevers," Emanuel said, adding the "real issue is vigilance on the part of the country."
Emanuel is credited as the architect of Obamacare and is a vice provost for Global Initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania.
Duncan was originally sent home from a Dallas emergency room when he sought treatment for his symptoms, but returned two days later where he was then diagnosed with Ebola. Emanuel said while "you like to treat things earlier," it was difficult to determine if it would have made a difference had he been diagnosed sooner.
"You've got a disease where the mortality rate is 50 percent. The flip of a coin. And, it's very hard to know whether one thing or another in any individual case led to this man's death, because Ebola is so fatal," he said.
The incident would serve as a "wake-up call" to hospitals in the country to be vigilant in identifying and treating patients with Ebola symptoms, Emanuel said.
Dr. Rajiv Shah, administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development, will be traveling to West Africa to monitor efforts to prevent the spread of Ebola, where the disease has killed more than 3,800 people.
He told "Morning Joe" the U.S. had invested more than $300 million to deploy "the largest ever disaster assistance response team and Centers for Disease Control team out to the region."
"I do think we are seeing some cautious signs of momentum at building exactly the confidence ... which is required to get over the tide and to turn around this epidemic in the endemic countries," Shah said Thursday.
Efforts by the United States in West Africa have included building Ebola treatment units, care centers in communities, and community mobilization and education programs to help people know how to protect themselves if they come in contact with Ebola patients, Shah said.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.