Ebola’s Impact on Travel Spreads Beyond the Outbreak

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Two days after a man in Texas was diagnosed with Ebola, Dr. Gil Mobley, a Missouri doctor, checked in and boarded a plane dressed in full protection gear Thursday morning, Oct. 2, 2014, at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. He was protesting what he called mismanagement of the crisis by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Two days after a man in Texas was diagnosed with Ebola, Dr. Gil Mobley, a Missouri doctor, checked in and boarded a plane dressed in full protection gear Thursday morning, Oct. 2, 2014, at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. He was protesting what he called mismanagement of the crisis by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

2016%2f06%2f30%2fc2%2f201504160cheadshot_20.c1ad5.1f6ebBy Jessica Plautz2014-10-10 22:52:51 UTC

As the Ebola outbreak has gained speed in West Africa, the effect on travel has spread far beyond the three countries most affected.

Tour companies and tourist destinations β€” not just in the area, but around the African continent β€” are losing millions of dollars as travelers cancel trips or alter their plans in order to avoid any potential exposure to the deadly disease.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 4,000 people have died in the worst-ever Ebola outbreak ever recorded. But the size of the outbreak does not match the increasing fear of the disease.

“The risk of Ebola transmission is low,” according to the health organization. “Becoming infected requires direct, physical contact with the bodily fluids (vomit, feces, urine, blood, semen, etc.) of people who have been infected with or died from Ebola virus disease.”

Screenings at airports around the world are underway, however, in the hopes of identifying any potential carriers of the disease as they pass through transportation hubs.

  1. Quarantine officers attend an exercise to prevent the spreading the Ebola virus on August 27, 2014 at Zhangjiajie Hehua International Airport in China.exercise were held at Zhangjiajie Hehua International Airport.
  2. Passengers wait in line at Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoint at John F. Kennedy International Airport, Queens, New York, USA, 09 October 2014. Travelers arriving from Ebola-stricken countries in West Africa will have their temperature taken and fill out a questionnaire when they arrive at one of five major U.S. airports.
  3. A worker from Moroccan health screening team dressed in protective gear shows the way to passengers at the arrivals hall of the Mohammed V airport in Casablanca, Thursday, Oct 9, 2014.
  4. Kenyan health workers from port health service screen for temperatures of travelers at a screening point at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) in Nairobi, Kenya on August 14, 2014.
  5. An airport worker wears a protective face mask in the arrivals area of the Los Angeles International Airport as the US announced increased passenger screenings against the Ebola Virus on October 9, 2014. Five United States airports (although not LAX) will step-up airport screening measures to look for passengers carrying Ebola.
  6. An Ivorian health worker from the National Public Health Institute screens for temperature international travellers arriving as a precaution to curb the spread of the deadly Ebola virus at the Felix Houphouet Boigny International airport in Abidjan, Ivory Coast on August 13, 2014. The Ivory Coast has banned all flights from countries hit by Ebola namely Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone as part of measures to prevent the deadly virus from reaching the West African nation.
  7. Members of the Health Team from Myanmar Ministry of Health watch the screen for temperatures at Yangon International Airport, Yangon, Myanmar on August 20, 2014.
  8. A Nigerian port health official uses a thermometer on a passengers at the arrivals hall of Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos, Nigeria on August 6, 2014.
  9. Workers with the union 32BJ, many of them airline cabin cleaners, terminal cleaners and wheelchair attendants, participate in a class on how to better protect themselves from infectious diseases in the wake of increased concerns around the Ebola virus on October 9, 2014 in New York City. The infectious disease training classes will be ongoing and teach members how to wear protective clothing and to safely handle potentially harmful body fluids they may come in contact with. It was announced on Wednesday that five airports across the United States will start screening passengers arriving from Ebola-affected countries in West Africa.
  10. Passengers pass by a thermal camera which measures body temperature at Skopje Airport, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia on October 10, 2014.
  11. A police border agent, left, dressed in protective gear as he checks a passport from a traveler coming from Guineat after he was tested for Ebola by Moroccan health screening team at the arrivals hall of the Mohammed V airport in Casablanca on October 9, 2014, Airlines flying directly to and from the West African countries stricken by Ebola could carry infected passengers without knowing, but barring a complete stop to travel, they have few options to reduce risks. Passengers are screened before boarding, but because the disease is hard to catch in the early stages, it’s possible the tests might not catch infected individuals.
  12. A Thai official monitoring a screen as he is scanning arriving passengers for high temperature, as part of the Ebola virus prevention campaign at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, Thailand on August 22, 2014.
  13. An airport health worker stands next to a health advisory as she monitors all arriving passengers inside Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) in Pasay City, south of Manila, Philippines on September 10, 2014.

Exit screenings at airports in affected countries have been underway for months: Travelers are observed for symptoms, must submit to temperature scans, and are asked about recent contact with sick people.

In the U.S., airport screenings are slated to begin Saturday at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) in New York City, and next week at four other major airports.

The most immediate concern in West Africa is of course to get the outbreak under control. The lasting effects of the disease on the local economies will likely be felt for years to come.

Intrepid Travel, a tour company that offers itineraries in Africa, has canceled 10 itineraries for trips that pass through the affected countries.

Cyndi Zesk, Intrepid Travel’s regional director for North America, told Mashable that most of the tourists that book with them travel to East or South Africa. She said Intrepid’s bookings to other parts of Africa have been strong.

“We supply all travelers who are concerned about traveling to Kenya and east Africa with the latest information of precautionary measurements being taken for their safety,” Zesk said.

Other tour operators have not been as lucky, and some have experienced a high number of cancelations since news coverage of the outbreak increased in mid-July.

In August, South African tour operator Barry Hurter told the Wall Street Journal that thousands of itineraries had been canceled out of fear of Ebola.

“‘Ebola is in Africa.’ That is what they’re saying,” Hurter told the newspaper.

Cape Town is more than 5,000 miles from where the outbreak is concentrated. As a comparison, Los Angeles and New York City are about 2,700 miles apart.

β€œI would predict that 32 U.S. tour operators have lost about $2 million due to cancellations in the past week,” AndrΓ© Styenberg, VP of sales at tour company Alluring Africa, told Yahoo Travel. Alluring Africa’s tours are in East and South Africa.

In addition to the geographic distance, many African countries have introduced travel restrictions for the affected countries. For example, South Africa has banned all non-citizens traveling from Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia; Gambia has shut its borders with the impacted nations and Nigeria.

So far, the number of Ebola cases outside Guinea, Sierra Leone or Liberia is very small. Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person to fall ill with the disease while in the United States died Wednesday. He was exposed to Ebola while in Liberia. None of the people he had contact with in the U.S. have shown symptoms.

Other Ebola patients in the U.S. and Europe were brought back to the country in isolation after they fell ill in West Africa, in order to provide them medical care.

In Africa, there are a handful of confirmed cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria and Senegal; no deaths in those countries have yet been reported.

Additional cases include a nurse in Spain, Teresa Romero Ramos, who cared for a priest who was sick with the disease, and a man in Brazil who was hospitalized Friday.

Since Duncan was diagnosed in the U.S., the fear of “getting Ebola” has been the top trending topic among mentions of Ebola on Twitter, according to social analytics company Crimson Hexagon. Prior to the case in the U.S., mentions of the disease were more focused on “Ebola outbreak” and “Ebola virus” β€” not on the act of falling ill.

Crimson Hexagon found 371,810 posts on Twitter about travel and Ebola between July 15 and Oct. 9, more than half of which were posted after the Centers for Disease Control announced Duncan’s case on Sept. 30. Over the entire period, 21% of those posts indicated fear or anxiety, according to the company’s algorithm that measures sentiment. The percentage jumped to 33% from Sept. 30 to Oct. 3.

The U.S. had the highest number of authors posting on Twitter about travel and Ebola, according to Crimson Hexagon.

In a survey of U.S. adults by NBC News and Survey Monkey, 58% of respondents said they support a travel ban of flights from affected countries to the U.S. The same survey found 30% of respondents are worried they or someone they know will be exposed to the disease. If those 30% are representative of the larger population, there are about 95 million Americans who fear catching Ebola.

Anxiety about air travel has been on display this week.

A plane at Newark airport was held before takeoff last week when a passenger began vomiting.

And the seriousness of the threat of Ebola was on display on a US Airways flight Wednesday, when a man joked about having Ebola.

The joke got the man escorted off the plane.