美机场将测试埃博拉疫区乘客体温

ATLANTA — Federal health officials will require temperature checks for the first time at five major American airports for people arriving from the three West African countries hardest hit by the deadly Ebola virus. However, health experts said the measures were more likely to calm a worried public than to prevent many people with Ebola from entering the country.

亚特兰大——根据联邦卫生官员的要求，美国的五大机场将首次对来自受致命性埃博拉病毒影响最为严重的三个西非国家的乘客进行体温测试。不过，卫生专家称，这些措施更大的作用可能是平息公众的担忧，并不是为了阻止多大规模的埃博拉病毒携带者进入美国。

Still, they constitute the first large-scale attempt to improve security at American ports of entry since the virus arrived on American soil last month.

尽管如此，上述举措仍然是埃博拉病毒上个月出现在美国本土之后，在美国入境口岸加强保障的首次大规模尝试。

And they also mark a notable policy shift at a time of rising concern about the disease. Public health officials had initially resisted the move, saying such checks would be an unnecessary use of thinly stretched resources. But pressure for tougher action mounted. Republicans sharply criticized President Obama for what they called a lax response. Many, including Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, have pushed to restrict air travel from West Africa, something the administration has rejected.

此外，在埃博拉引发的担忧不断加剧的同时，上述措施还标志着一次明显的政策转向。公共卫生官员最初曾拒绝这一手段，称此类检查是对有限资源的无谓浪费。不过，采取更有力行动的压力与日俱增。共和党人称奥巴马应对不力，对其进行了激烈的谴责。包括德克萨斯州联邦参议员特德·克鲁兹(Ted Cruz)在内的许多人都要求限制来自西非的旅客入境，但奥巴马政府一直拒绝采取这一做法。

The temperature check requirements were announced hours after the first Ebola patient to have the illness diagnosed in the United States, Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian, died in a Dallas hospital, intensifying questions about whether he might have survived had he been admitted to a hospital when he first sought care there in late September.

美国本土确诊的首位埃博拉患者、利比里亚人托马斯·埃里克·邓肯(Thomas Eric Duncan)在达拉斯的一家医院去世。几个小时后，体温筛查措施对外公布。邓肯的死加剧了外界的质疑，即假如他9月末首次求医时就被收治，是否就不会死。

The president's Republican critics were largely silent Wednesday after Mr. Duncan died and the administration announced the airport screenings. It was unclear if the Republicans saw the temperature checks as a sufficient response to the epidemic or if they did not want to be perceived as seeking political gain from Mr. Duncan's death.

在邓肯病逝以及政府宣布了机场的筛查措施之后，批评奥巴马的共和党人周三基本上保持了沉默。不知道这是因为共和党人认为用体温筛查来应对埃博拉已经足够，还是因为他们不愿意被视作利用邓肯的死亡捞取政治利益。

That Mr. Duncan was able to get from Liberia to Dallas as the disease surged out of control in West Africa underscored the risk of spreading disease in a globalized world. An infected Liberian-American, Patrick Sawyer, carried the disease to Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, on a flight for business. Mr. Duncan had come to the United States to reunite with family.

埃博拉在西非肆虐的同时，邓肯却能够从利比里亚来到达拉斯，这一事实突显了疾病在全球化的世界中蔓延的风险。感染埃博拉病毒的利比里亚裔美国公民帕特里克·索耶(Patrick Sawyer)在差旅过程中将病毒传播到了非洲人口最多的国家尼日利亚。邓肯来美国则是为了与家人团聚。

"We are a global village," said Howard Markel, a professor of the history of medicine at the University of Michigan. "Germs have always traveled. The problem now is they can travel with the speed of a jet plane."

“我们生活在一个地球村，”密歇根大学医学史教授霍华德·马克尔(Howard Markel)说。“病菌永远都在传播。现在的问题是，它如今可以用飞机的速度传播。”

The new requirement of temperature checks has broad implications for health departments across the country.

新的体温检测措施将为全美的卫生部门带来广泛影响。

In a conference call with state and local officials Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Obama expressed confidence in the procedures already in place to prevent the spread of Ebola, but urged them to be vigilant in the days and weeks ahead.

周三下午，在与州级和地方官员的电话会议上，奥巴马表示对目前实施的防止埃博拉病毒扩散的措施抱有信心，但同时敦促这些官员在接下来的时间里保持警惕。

"As we saw in Dallas, we don't have a lot of margin for error," Mr. Obama told the group, according to a transcript released by the White House. "If we don't follow protocols and procedures that are put in place, then we're putting folks in our communities at risk."

“正如我们在达拉斯所看到的，我们没有多少犯错的余地，”根据白宫发布的文字记录，奥巴马对这些官员说。“如果我们不遵守现有的规章和程序，我们就是在把自己社区的民众置于危险之中。”

Experts cautioned that a temperature check on arrival would almost certainly not have detected that Mr. Duncan had Ebola before he entered the country. The disease typically incubates for eight to 10 days before symptoms including fever develop.

一些专家提醒，即使在邓肯入境前对其进行体温测试，也几乎不可能察觉他感染了埃博拉病毒。这种病毒一般有8到10天的潜伏期，然后才会引起发热等症状。

American health officials believe Mr. Duncan did not have a fever when he arrived in the United States, a view seconded by his family. "There's a sense that this is a be-all-and-end-all and that this will put up an iron curtain, but it won't," said Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University. "At the very most, all we are buying here is some reduction of anxiety." He added: "That's worth something because, at the moment, we have a much larger outbreak of anxiety than we have of Ebola."

美国的卫生官员相信，邓肯在落地的时候并没有发热症状。他的家人也支持这一看法。“有人认为体温测试是一个万全之策，如同竖起了一道铜墙铁壁，但实际上并非如此，”范德堡大学(Vanderbilt University)预防医学教授威廉·沙夫纳博士(William Schaffner)说。“我们最多只能减少一些焦虑。”他接着说：“这种做法有一定价值，因为当前，我们的焦虑程度比埃博拉疫情本身要严重得多。”

The measures will go into effect on Saturday at Kennedy International Airport in New York. JFK receives about 43 percent of the people who fly to the United States from Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. Next week, screenings will begin at Washington Dulles, which gets 22 percent of such travelers, and at Newark Liberty International, O'Hare International in Chicago and Hartsfield-Jackson International in Atlanta.

这些措施将于本周六在纽约的肯尼迪国际机场（Kennedy International Airport，简称JFK）开始实行。从塞拉利昂、利比里亚和几内亚飞往美国的乘客中，约43%在JFK抵达。接待22%的此类旅客的华盛顿杜勒斯机场(Dulles)，以及纽瓦克自由国际机场(Newark Liberty International)、芝加哥奥黑尔国际机场(O'Hare International)和亚特兰大哈兹菲尔德-杰克逊国际机场(Hartsfield-Jackson International)也将于下周开始这一做法。

After a passport check, airport workers will lead travelers to a special area and point a thermometer at their foreheads. The workers will also ask travelers questions. A fever can be a symptom of Ebola. Those who have a temperature will be taken to a quarantine area in the airports and evaluated by an official from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It will be up to local health departments whether to place them in quarantine.

在护照检查后，机场工作人员会把乘客带到一个专门的区域，用体温仪对着他们的额头测量温度。工作人员还会询问他们一些问题。发烧可能是埃博拉的一个症状。因此，发热的乘客将会被带到机场的隔离区，接受美国疾病控制与预防中心（Centers for Disease Control and Prevention，简称CDC）的一名官员的评估。是否需要对旅客采取隔离措施则取决于当地卫生部门。

In Texas, for example, health authorities required some people who had contact with Mr. Duncan to be monitored by health professionals to be sure their temperatures were properly monitored, said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the C.D.C. director.

例如，CDC主任托马斯·R·弗里登博士(Thomas R. Frieden)称，在德克萨斯，卫生部门要求医护专业人士对一些接触过邓肯的人进行观察，确保其体温受到应有的监测。

"Ebola is scary, it's a deadly disease," he said. "But we know how to stop it."

“埃博拉的确可怕，它致人死亡，”他说。“但我们知道如何遏制它。”

He added, "Health workers throughout the U.S. need to think Ebola."

他接着说，“全美的卫生工作人员都要把埃博拉放在心上。”

The number of travelers from the affected West African countries is relatively small, and Dr. Frieden said the measures were unlikely to be disruptive. Only about 150 people a day come to the United States from the three countries, and the five airports receive about 94 percent of them.

西非疫区国家的旅客人数相对较少，而且弗里登博士说，测体温的措施不大可能对机场秩序造成影响。每天只有约150人从这三个国家来到美国，其中94%在这五座机场降落。

In Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, C.D.C.-trained local workers have been screening people as they depart from Africa. Of the roughly 36,000 travelers who left the three countries over the past two months, about a quarter came to the United States, officials said. Of those, just 77 had symptoms, such as a fever. Most were related to malaria, a disease spread by mosquitoes. None were Ebola, Dr. Frieden said.

在利比里亚、塞拉利昂和几内亚，接受了CDC培训的当地工作人员一直在对从非洲出发的旅客进行筛查。官员称，过去两个月从这三个国家出发的约3.6万名旅客中，约四分之一进入了美国。其中只有77人出现了一些症状，比如发热。多数人的症状与通过蚊子传播的疟疾有关。无人携带埃博拉病毒，弗里登博士说。