The Canadian government said on Sunday \u200bit would deny entry to any foreigner who has been to Congo within the \u200cpast 21 days as part of new, temporary border measures to combat the spread of Ebola.<\/p>\n
The ban contravenes advice from the World Health Organization, which advises against travel or trade restrictions with Congo, where officials are currently struggling to \u200bcontain a large outbreak of Ebola. The U.N. health agency says travel restrictions create stigma \u200band can make epidemics harder to control.<\/p>\n
“People from affected regions and African communities \u2060have faced unfair suspicion,” WHO said in a statement last month. “The spread of Ebola is not \u200bdetermined by nationality or ethnicity.” WHO estimates that the risk of Congo’s Ebola outbreak spreading internationally is \u200blow.<\/p>\n
Ebola is mostly spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of someone infected with the disease. As of July 15, Congo had reported more than 2,100 Ebola cases including 828 deaths.<\/p>\n
In a statement on Sunday, Canada’s Public Health \u200bAgency said “limiting entry of foreign nationals who have been in (Congo) in the previous 21 days may \u200breduce public health risks for Canadians.”<\/p>\n
The measures take effect on Monday, July 20, at 11:59 p.m. EDT, the Public \u200cHealth Agency \u2060of Canada said in a statement. Canada previously\u00a0suspended\u00a0immigration documents for residents from Congo, Uganda and South Sudan. No Ebola cases have been confirmed in South Sudan and Uganda has not reported any new cases since last month.<\/p>\n
Mark Johnson, a spokesman for the agency, acknowledged in an email that the risk to Canadians \u200bwas low and that \u200bfailure to comply with \u2060the new restrictions could result in a fine of up to CAD$150,000 for individuals and up to $1.5 million for corporations.<\/p>\n
He said the updated measures “aligns some \u200bof Canada’s temporary border measures with those of the U.S. and Mexico.”<\/p>\n
Last \u200bweek, the U.S. \u2060introduced measures preventing Americans who had been in Congo in the previous 21 days from entering the U.S. via commercial aviation. Seven American aid workers who had been working in Congo to stop the outbreak \u2060are currently\u00a0quarantining\u00a0in \u200ba facility in Kenya.<\/p>\n
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and \u200bControl has recommended against travel bans for people from Congo, saying they can disrupt humanitarian aid and have limited effectiveness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Canadian government said on Sunday \u200bit would deny entry to any foreigner who has been to Congo within the \u200cpast 21 days as part of new, temporary border measures to combat the spread of Ebola. The ban contravenes advice from the World Health Organization, which advises against travel or trade restrictions with Congo, where […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21426,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":6,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,2362,2854],"tags":[2065,75,222],"class_list":["post-21475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-africa","category-featured","category-health","tag-canada","tag-ebola","tag-world-health-organization-who"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21475"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21476,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21475\/revisions\/21476"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}