EBOLA SCREENING AT CRUISE PORTS?

This week Ebola screening is being extended to Manchester and Birmingham airports. I would like to know, do you think this should be extended to cruise ports?

Ebola screening is currently dominating news headlines, are we ready? Where should we be screening at? Should it be at all airport? Etc.

Well personally I feel, if you can enter the country from any effected areas, then surely you should be checked. Weather that be at an airport, cruise port or ferry terminal. As from next week Eurostar’s London terminal will also be checking passengers from at-risk countries.

About 1,000 people arrived in the UK from Ebola-affected countries in West Africa last month, according to official estimates.

We are already starting to see how this is affecting cruise ships. On Sunday a Carnival Cruise Lines ship carrying a health care worker from Texas who had contact with the Ebola virus returned to port, after being refused entry to Belize and Mexico. Carnival Magic was barred from docking and the ship was forced to return to its home port of Galveston, Texas where it arrived early on Sunday morning.

Customers on board were clearly unhappy at the missed port, Carnival compensated them by giving $200 on-board credit and a 50% discount on a future cruise based on the missed visit to Cozumel.

Carnival later commented “We are able to confirm that the (Ebola) test was negative,”

Can Ebola be checked at cruise ports? Well if they can check for the virus at the Eurostar Terminal then I’m sure something could be put in place at the cruise terminals.