After U.S. travel restrictions stemming from the Ebola outbreak forced a business flight to divert to Montreal while carrying a passenger from one among the countries facing those latest rules, Canadians could also be wondering whether Canada should impose its own travel restrictions.
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the Ebola disease outbreak attributable to a rare virus in Congo and Uganda a public health emergency of international concern on Sunday, with not less than 139 suspected deaths and greater than 600 suspected cases.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, said on Wednesday that “we expect those numbers to maintain increasing.”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention and the Department of Homeland Security imposed a U.S. entry ban on foreign travelers who’ve been in Congo, Uganda, or South Sudan prior to now 21 days “effective immediately.”
“At the moment, CDC assesses the immediate risk to the overall U.S. public as low, but we’ll proceed to judge the evolving situation and will adjust public health measures as additional information becomes available,” a press release from the CDC reads.
Currently, the Canadian government advises Canadians to avoid all travel to Ituri and North Kivu provinces, citing safety and security concerns.
Nonetheless, the federal government has issued a level two travel notice for Congo, which is ready to point “an increased risk to travellers or certain groups of travellers (for instance, pregnant women, campers, people visiting friends and relatives) and reminds them to practice enhanced health precautions.”
There’s currently no travel notices surrounding South Sudan and Uganda in relation to Ebola outbreaks.
The notice advises Canadians to “practice enhanced health precautions” corresponding to:
- The use of non-public protective equipment
- Delaying travel until risk is lower
- Additional really useful vaccinations for some groups
- Avoiding higher-risk activities
Global News reached out to infectious disease experts to ask whether travel bans could be effective and whether Canada should follow suit.
Dr. Gerald Evans, a professor of drugs and infectious diseases at Queen’s University, believes that Canadian travel restrictions aren’t vital.
“We all know that travel restrictions don’t work in relation to controlling the spread of something like a viral hemorrhagic fever virus like Ebola is,” he said.
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This can be a sentiment that Dr. Isaac Bogoch, infectious disease specialist on the Toronto General Hospital also agrees with.
“Those aren’t very effective measures in keeping infectious diseases out,” he said.
Compared to the travel restrictions that got here from the COVID-19 pandemic, Bogoch said that the spread of the 2 illnesses is vastly different.
“With COVID, it’s got a brief incubation period and there’s transmission of the virus before people have overt symptoms, so it’s very transmissible, it’s hard to regulate,” he said.
“And we did close our borders […] a number of that was performative. It didn’t really impact the importation of COVID. We had travel bans for particular countries and that also didn’t wasn’t very effective.”
Evans also stated that the recent hantavirus exposures have left people cautious that one other potential pandemic could occur.
“The hantavirus issue that we’ve been facing recently with the cruise ship and now this Ebola outbreak in East Africa, with almost certainty, I can see these aren’t going to grow to be a pandemic. They’re spread in a really different way,” he said.
“COVID is a respiratory virus, so it was relatively easy to transmit between people, very similar to the common cold is or influenza and RSV. It’s a really different picture with these viruses [Ebola and hantavirus], that are transmitted through a unique mechanism than COVID was.”
Compared to Ebola and hantavirus, Evans stated that the spread of the 2 illnesses stems “only once you get and the sicker you get that you just actually get a number of transmission.”
“By that point, you’ve already identified any person who’s unwell and possibly tested them and discovered what they’d. COVID was trickier,” he said.
Bogoch also said that with people travelling at rates “never seen before,” it makes the containment of those illnesses way more difficult.
“The sad reality is that we’re in an era of unprecedented human mobility at a worldwide level,” he said. “You possibly can start in a single corner of the world and be in nearly another a part of the world in 24 hours through business means.“
“There’s still going to be outbreaks, but we should always have systems in place where we’re obviously supportive of low- and middle-income countries in order that they’re higher capable of prevent, detect and reply to these [outbreaks],” he said.
How severe is the Ebola outbreak?
There’s no approved treatment for Ebola disease in Canada. Patients can receive oxygen, intravenous fluids and other drugs in designated treatment sites to assist with symptoms, in response to the Canadian government.
While the WHO determined that the outbreak constitutes a public health emergency of international concern, it doesn’t meet the standards of pandemic emergency.
The outbreak is attributable to Bundibugyo virus disease (BVD), a style of Ebola disease. There are not any approved vaccines or specific treatments for BVD.
Most cases are reported in Ituri province, including the Mongwalu, Rwampara, and Bunia health zones. Ituri province borders Uganda, where imported cases linked to this outbreak have been reported.
Cases have also been reported in Goma, in North Kivu province. In response, border crossings between Goma and neighbouring Rwanda (Goma-Giseny) are closed until further notice on account of the outbreak.
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