"Nothing is off the table" when it comes to keeping Americans safe from the spread of Ebola, even passenger screenings at airports, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Thomas Frieden said Monday.
"We're certainly looking at those possibilities, and others as well," said Frieden on Fox and Friends Monday. "Nothing is off the table in terms of keeping Americans safe, except doing things that might actually backfire and make Americans less safe ... our top priority is to keep Americans safe. That's what CDC does 24-7."
Frieden,
like on Sunday, made the rounds of Monday's news programs to outline the steps the CDC is taking to prevent Africa's Ebola epidemic from affecting the United States.
He is to visit the White House later today to discuss the issues with President Barack Obama, but continued to insist, as he did on Sunday, that health officials can keep the disease from spreading in the United States.
"The way we're going to stop Ebola is not only by caring for individuals, but most importantly, by making sure we track every single contact," and isolate those who show symptoms.
"Because of our public health and health care systems in this country, that I'm confident we're not going to have a large outbreak here," he said.
Meanwhile, in Texas, where Liberian citizen Thomas Eric Duncan is in critical condition with the disease, "there were exposures" and some of them were preventable, said Frieden.
"We're doing a lot to ensure that hospitals, emergency departments, doctors, nurses, throughout the country really keep this top of mind as they should," said Frieden.
"Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough told Frieden that the CDC got "stiff-armed" by the World Health Organization, and asked why it took so long to determine that Ebola is an international crisis, not one just limited to Africa.
"The world needs the World Health Organization, and what we've done at CDC is help them get stronger," said Frieden. "This was a first-ever situation, unprecedented. What's happening now is actually we're seeing signs of hope. We're seeing signs of progress in Africa."
The disease was allowed to spread into West Africa's urban areas, said Frieden, and "once there, it became very difficult to control when you didn't have enough places to place people to care for people."
Frieden said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" show its understandable that Americans are scared about the virus, "but you have to put it in perspective. It will not be a large Ebola outbreak in the United States...we're not going to have the kind of outbreak in any way, shape or form compared to what's happening in Africa."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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