Health ministers from the European union have held an emergency meeting on the Ebola epidemic. They discussed the introduction of mandatory screening at airports - to try to stop the spread of the virus.
Health ministers from all 28 European union member states are discussing whether to introduce mandatory Ebola virus screening for all passengers entering the bloc by air. Decisions on whether to screen passengers are currently taken by individual European governments.
Britain is the only EU nation to have introduced screening at international airports with flights to and from West Africa. The UK now wants similar steps taken at an EU-wide level. The World Health Organization has so far stopped short of calling for the monitoring of travelers from affected West African nations, as those countries have already implemented airport-screening procedures.
Reports say European health ministers will also discuss the effectiveness of those point-of-departure screening procedures in the countries still attempting to contain the deadly outbreak. A man who died of Ebola in the US had transited through Brussels airport on his way home from Liberia without his condition being detected.
Less than half a dozen European countries, including France and Belgium, have direct air links with high-risk areas in West Africa, but countries like Britain warn the EU is now lagging well behind countries like the United States and Canada, which have also already begun screening passengers for Ebola at major international airports.
