Study suggests that temperature scans will miss most Ebola cases. Washington Post.

A temperature check. Washington Post/Reuters.

A study on 2009's Swine Flu epidemic suggests that temperature scans for fever will be largely ineffective in preventing Ebola. -Washington Post. The study was an analysis of the 2009 outbreak in Sydney Australia. The airport there discovered 5845 cases of fever, of which only 3 were due to the Swine Flu. 45 travelers who had the disease were able to get through the screening in the two month period of the study. That means the vast majority of Swine Flu patients were able to pass through screening without being detected. Less then one percent of Swine Flu cases were detected at the airport. The vast majority, seventy-six percent, were detected at emergency rooms and doctor's offices. Another study from Japan came to a similar conclusion, stating that fever screening alone is unlikely to prevent epidemics. Contact tracing was a much better way to stop the disease. 

My Comment:

This news isn't surprising but it is surprising to see an American media outlet admit it. All to often the media has been pushing the "government has everything under control" line. So how accurate is this study? I tend to believe it and it does make sense to extrapolate the results to the current Ebola outbreak. Both Swine Flu and Ebola have fever as a major symptom but in this case fever screenings are even less likely to catch infected persons. The incubation period for Ebola is up to 21 days and it is only 5 days for Swine Flu. In the incubation period the victim would show no symptoms at all. Also, when a person does become sick with Ebola they are often completely incapacitated after a few days. These screenings would only work for people that are in the first couple of days of illness. Everyone in the incubation period would not have a fever and anyone still sick after the first stages of the disease would be too sick to travel anyways. And even the people in the initial stages could take a fever reducer to pass the screening anyways. 

In short, fever screenings are a joke and are extremely unlikely to catch people with the disease. What does work? Travel restrictions and quarantines. Unfortunately both solutions have faced fierce resistance from the U.S. government. Banning casual travel from the hot zone and keeping essential people, like doctors, nurses and soldiers in quarantines make sense but the current administration has no interest in it. We will see if this is a major error or not. Contact tracing works as well, but it is dependent on having a small number of cases. When you get as many cases as West Africa has right now it breaks down.