By Iain Axon<\/p>\n
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, May 22 (Reuters) – The risk of Ebola affecting fans at the World Cup is low, according to Dr Oliver Johnson, a global health academic at King’s \u200cCollege London, but heightened screening and travel restrictions could complicate logistics.<\/p>\n
The expanded 48-team tournament, co-hosted \u200cby the United States, Canada and Mexico, runs from June 11 to July 19.<\/p>\n
An Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has \u200brecorded around 600 suspected cases and more than 130 deaths, prompting the World Health Organization to declare a public health emergency of international concern.<\/p>\n
The situation has already disrupted DR Congo’s World Cup preparations. The team cancelled pre-tournament events in Kinshasa and relocated plans to Belgium.<\/p>\n
U.S. authorities have also barred entry to non-U.S. passport holders who have \u200cbeen in DR Congo, Uganda or South \u2060Sudan in the past 21 days, forcing Congo-based staff to depart early.<\/p>\n
The squad is due to arrive in the U.S. on June 10 or 11 and will be \u2060based in Houston.<\/p>\n
“If you are a casual visitor to the World Cup from around the world, I think there is a very low risk that you would be at risk of Ebola,” Johnson told Reuters. “Ebola has never really caused \u200btransmission in \u200bhigh-income country settings, where there have been very occasional \u200bcases.<\/p>\n
“That is because it is not airborne. You \u200chad to normally have direct contact with someone who is quite sick, and there is usually good contact tracing. If a case does occur, it is identified quickly.”<\/p>\n
Johnson said the outbreak could still have broader implications.<\/p>\n
U.S. authorities have introduced enhanced screening for travellers arriving at Washington Dulles who have recently been in affected countries, while health agencies are working with FIFA and local officials to manage potential risks.<\/p>\n
“It will affect things like airport \u200cqueues and screening, which will slow things down,” Johnson said. “It \u200bis going to add a little extra stress and it’s going \u200bto cost money to the U.S. to \u200btry and organise.<\/p>\n
“I think the other possibility is that we hope this outbreak is \u200cnot going to spread beyond DR Congo…. That \u200bcould cause a knock-on effect \u200bof travel bans or extra screening, and it could happen quite last minute.”<\/p>\n
Fans travelling to the tournament should follow basic precautions such as good hand hygiene and avoiding close contact if unwell, Johnson \u200badded. He advised supporters to respect \u200cothers and avoid stigma, helping preserve the inclusive spirit of the World Cup.<\/p>\n
DR Congo open their \u200bcampaign against Portugal in Houston before facing Colombia in Guadalajara and Uzbekistan in Atlanta.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by \u200bIain Axon; Writing by Pearl Josephine Nazare in Bengaluru;)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Iain Axon JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, May 22 (Reuters) – The risk of Ebola affecting fans at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454294,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1912,82694,85,46,18179,145733,211998,9517,105,1916,6866],"class_list":["post-454293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-democratic-republic-of-congo","tag-ebola-outbreak","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-johannesburg","tag-king39s-college-london","tag-oliver-johnson","tag-south-africa","tag-sports","tag-world-health-organization","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}