--- title: President Barack Obama: U.S. Will Beef Up Ebola Screenings description: But reassures Americans that odds of an outbreak here are "extraordinarily low" canonical: https://time.com/3476212/obama-ebola-screenings-passenger/ author: Zeke Miller article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-10-06T21:14:54.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:00:30.816Z article:section: Politics og:title: President Barack Obama: U.S. Will Beef Up Ebola Screenings og:description: But reassures Americans that odds of an outbreak here are "extraordinarily low" og:url: https://time.com/3476212/obama-ebola-screenings-passenger/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd547c782c3dcd825/6986a73ff983e76df30500f0/457e9ed589774397a1d0e283e3f56517-0.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: Barack Obama og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: President Barack Obama: U.S. Will Beef Up Ebola Screenings twitter:description: But reassures Americans that odds of an outbreak here are "extraordinarily low" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd547c782c3dcd825/6986a73ff983e76df30500f0/457e9ed589774397a1d0e283e3f56517-0.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Obama: U.S. Will Beef Up Airport Screenings for Ebola > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: Ebola’s Orphans Have No Place to Go [Watch (HLS stream): Ebola’s Orphans Have No Place to Go](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/EbFfwt0W.m3u8) (1:46)  _Published 2014-10-02. Ebola’s Orphans Have No Place to Go_ by [Zeke Miller](https://time.com/author/zeke-j-miller/) ## Zeke Miller Oct 6, 2014 9:14 PM UTC  President Barack Obama meets with members of his national security team and senior staff to receive an update on the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, Oct. 6, 2014, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington. President Barack Obama meets with members of his national security team and senior staff to receive an update on the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, Oct. 6, 2014, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington. Jacquelyn Martin—AP by [Zeke Miller](https://time.com/author/zeke-j-miller/) ## Zeke Miller Oct 6, 2014 9:14 PM UTC President Barack Obama said Monday that the U.S. is working on additional passenger screenings for airline passengers flying from Ebola-stricken West Africa, two weeks after a Liberian man infected with the disease entered the country. Officials are “going to be working on protocols to do additional passenger screenings both at the source and here in the United States,” Obama said, addressing reporters following a briefing on his administration’s response to the epidemic in Africa and efforts to keep the disease from spreading to the U.S. “All of these things make me confident that here in the United States at least the chances of an outbreak, of an epidemic here are extraordinarily low.” The president did not give specifics on the new screening measures, and Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) declined to elaborate further in an interview with CNN after the meeting. Obama also said other countries need to “step up” to address the spread of the disease, which has already killed thousands. “Although we have seen great interest on the part of the international community, we have not seen other countries step up as aggressively as they need to,” he said. “So I’m going to be putting a lot of pressure on my fellow heads of state and government around the world to make sure that they are doing everything that they can to join us in this effort.” The U.S. has deployed more than 100 medical professionals and is readying to send as many as 4,000 troops to help contain the outbreak in West Africa, while border agents and flight attendants are receiving training materials on how to spot potential travelers infected with Ebola. But the disease’s long incubation period means that infected travelers may not show signs of illness for as long as 21 days after they’ve been exposed, a gap that allowed Thomas Eric Duncan to enter the U.S. last month from Liberia via Brussels. Duncan is in “critical, but stable” condition in a Dallas-area hospital after being admitted last Sunday, and is being [treated](http://time.com/3475718/dallas-ebola-experimental-drug/) with an experimental drug called brinciodofovir. Ebola is only contagious once the infected individual shows symptoms, meaning fellow travelers were not in danger. U.S. officials have said that it is possible that others infected with Ebola may enter the United States, but have expressed confidence that they will be quickly isolated once they show symptoms. A sick passenger on a flight from Brussels to Newark, N.J. was greeted by medical crews including officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). “Procedures are now in place to rapidly evaluate anybody who might be showing symptoms,” Obama said. “We saw that with the response of the airplane in Newark and how several hospitals across the United States have been testing for possible cases. In recent months we’ve had thousands of travelers arriving here from West Africa, and so far only one case of Ebola’s been diagnosed in the United States, and that’s the patient in Dallas.” In an interview with CNN after the meeting, Dr. Tom Frieden, the CDC’s director, declined to elaborate on the potential new screening measures. ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] This is Berlinda. Her mother died of Ebola two weeks ago. She is one of the several hundred children orphaned by Ebola. So where do they go? Some of them go to Hope House. Where [ UNKNOWN ] Katie Myler is turning what was supposed to be a hotel into a temporary home for [ UNKNOWN ] orphans on Romovia. Construction is still going on, but Berlinda has already moved in along with three other children. So there will be room for 70 more. Not all of them are orphans. [ MUSIC ] The parents of these three year old twins are being treated for Ebola. Their grandmother, Martha Lane Freeman, is a nurse at an Ebola treatment center. Their mother and their is diagnosed of Ebola positive. She works 12 hour shirts and can't take care of the kids either . So they stay at Hope House. Where Marthalene comes to visit every day [ MUSIC ] She lets them talk to their parents on her mobile phone. Say hello. Hm. Many of the children are potential Ebola patients themselves. So the teachers are nurses have to be careful not to touch them without protection. We wear the PPE and then we hold them to show them love. In an ideal situation Ebola's orphans would be settled with relatives. Ten year old Esther survived Ebola but her parents did not. Even though she isn't contagious anymore her relatives refuse to take her in. Here she will have a loving home for as long as she needs. For Time. com, this is Erin Baker in Monrovia. 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