Ebola screenings begin at New York's JFK airport

All passengers landing at JFK from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea would have their temperatures taken, be checked for signs of illness and asked questions about their health and exposure to Ebola, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Saturday.

Suspected cases could be "barred from traveling further" and "referred to nearby hospitals" if necessary, the CDC said in a fact sheet published on its website.

"Exit screenings might not find every person with Ebola; however, it does not have to be perfect to help reduce the spread of Ebola," it said in a statement.

'Extraordinarily low'

The measures follow the death this week of Thomas Duncan, who died in a Texas hospital after being treated for Ebola with an experimental drug.

The Duncan case sparked panic about a possible spread of the virus in the United States, though President Barack Obama said the chances of a US Ebola outbreak were "extraordinarily low."

JFK, the destination of over half of all passengers from the three affected countries, is the first US airport to implement the screenings. Four other airports - Newark, Chicago's O'Hare, Washington's Dulles, and Atlanta International - are set to start the checks next week.

Liberian UN staff under observation

Meanwhile, Liberia's UN peacekeeping mission has placed 41 staff members, including 20 military personnel, under "close medical observation" after an international member of its medical team was diagnosed with Ebola earlier this week - the second mission member to test positive for the deadly disease.

"This measure is precautionary and meant to ensure no possible further transmission of the disease," the mission said in a statement on Friday, adding that none of the staff had shown any symptoms but would remain under observation.

The outbreak has now killed more than 4,000 people in total, according to a World Health Organization statement on Friday. In total, the disease has been diagnosed well over 8,000 times since the outbreak began early this year.

That includes more than 400 health care workers, 233 of those have died, according to the WHO. Liberia and Sierra Leone alone have recorded 95 health worker deaths.

Berlin 'well prepared'

On the online edition of Germany's Welt newspaper, a report indicated that Brussels was currently coordinating an evacuation mission to bring any aid worker infected with Ebola to Europe.

The article quoted a "high-ranking" EU diplomat as saying: "We must guarantee that all volunteers from Europe will helped immediately if they are infected."

Three patients infected with Ebola are currently being treated in Germany, #link:17983734:the last of which was flown into Leipzig on Thursday, according to the German health ministry. A hospital official said the Sudanese man had been working for the UN in Liberia, and that he was being given intensive care in isolation at a clinic in Leipzig.

According to Health Minister Hermann Gröhe, there is "no reason" for Germans to fear any outbreak of Ebola, as "Germany's health system very well prepared," Gröhe said in an interview published Saturday in the German paper Rheinische Post.

glb/ipj (Reuters, AFP, AP, dpa)