MIA Steps Up Effort To Identify Sick Passengers
MIAMI (CBSMiami) - Miami International Airport is taking the threat of Ebola, and other infectious diseases, seriously.
This week they're handing out thousands of cards to employees informing them what to do in the event they encounter a sick passenger. More than 100 managers at the airport will undergo special training on how to respond to infectious diseases like Ebola.
MIA is the second largest international passenger airport in the U.S.
"Seventy percent of all the visitors in the State of Florida come through MIA," said airport director Emilio Gonzalez.
So chances are someone could land here carrying an infectious disease, said Gonzalez who added that the airport's infectious disease plan is being updated.
"There's one protocol for the report of an ill passenger on an international flight inbound to Miami, there's another protocol for a domestic flight inbound to Miami," said Gonzalez. "If we had to quarantine an aircraft, we have a place at the airport to do that. not a whole lot of other airports in the State of Florida can do that."
Gonzalez said they plan a full exercise before the end of the year to drill for a scenario like Ebola.
Over the weekend, five airports started screening travelers coming from Liberia, Sierra Leon and Guinea for Ebola and other infectious diseases. The airports are New York's JFK, Newark in New Jersey, Dulles in Washington D.C., Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta and Chicago's O'Hare airport.
While not actively screening passengers, Gonzalez said MIA has to be ready just in case.
"We're a destination and it could very well be that somebody, from one of those airports will change flights and come here," said Gonzalez. "We just want to be ready. We can't not take this serious and not be prepared."
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