{"id":812675,"date":"2026-07-19T18:57:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T18:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/812675\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T18:57:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T18:57:09","slug":"canada-to-temporarily-bar-entry-by-foreign-nationals-recently-in-congo-due-to-ebola-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/812675\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada to temporarily bar entry by foreign nationals recently in Congo due to Ebola risk"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The \u200bfederal government on Sunday said \u200bit would deny \u2060entry \u2060to \u200cforeign nationals who had been to the \u2060Democratic Republic of the Congo \u200cwithin the past 21 days as part of new, temporary border measures \u200cto combat the spread \u200bof Ebola.<\/p>\n

The measures take \u200beffect on \u2060Monday \u2060at 11:59 \u2060p.m. ET and will last until Aug. 29, \u2060the \u200bPublic Health Agency \u200bof \u2060Canada (PHAC) said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Limiting entry of foreign nationals who have been in the the DRC in the previous 21 days may reduce public health risks for Canadians, and is intended to increase the effectiveness and sustainability of border measures that can safely process travelers arriving in Canada, including our returning humanitarian workers,” the statement says.<\/p>\n

The government’s travel health notice risk level for Congo is currently orange (or Level 3 out of 4), which means to avoid non-essential travel<\/a>. PHAC says the risk from Ebola for Canadians remains low and no travel-related cases in Canada have been reported. <\/p>\n

The measures enacted so far “are out of an abundance of caution,” the statement reads.<\/p>\n

UN warns of stigma attached to travel bans<\/p>\n

The ban contravenes advice from \u200bthe World Health Organization (WHO), which advises against travel \u200bor trade restrictions with Congo, where officials are currently struggling to contain the outbreak. The \u200bUN health agency says travel restrictions create stigma and \u2060can make epidemics \u2060harder to control.<\/p>\n

“People from affected regions \u200cand African communities have faced unfair suspicion,” the WHO said in a statement last month. “The spread of Ebola is not determined by nationality or ethnicity.” <\/p>\n

\"TwoHealth workers interact July 3 at the Evangelical Medical Center, in Bunia, eastern Congo, where Ebola clinical trials were scheduled to take place. (Dirole Lotsima Dieudonn\/The Associated Press)<\/p>\n

The federal government clamped down on travel and immigration from Congo, Uganda and South Sudan in late May<\/a>, suspending immigration documents from citizens of those countries.<\/p>\n

Canadian citizens, permanent residents and those registered under the Indian Act who have been in those countries within the last 21 days can still travel to Canada, but will receive a health assessment on arrival and must quarantine for 21 days.<\/p>\n

Ebola is mostly spread through direct contact with the \u2060bodily fluids of someone infected with the disease. The number of confirmed cases of Ebola in Congo has reached 2,011, including 754 deaths, according to government data released earlier this month<\/a>. The WHO says more than 100 health-care workers have been infected since the beginning of the outbreak.<\/p>\n

Last week, the U.S. introduced measures preventing \u200bAmericans who had been \u2060in Congo in the previous 21 days from entering the U.S. via commercial aviation. Seven U.S. aid workers who had been working in Congo to stop the outbreak are currently quarantining in a facility in \u2060Kenya.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":812676,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,44],"class_list":["post-812675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=812675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/812676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=812675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=812675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=812675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}