The state health department director wants to find out which travelers bound for South Carolina are arriving from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
Right now, state officials have no way of knowing who recently arrived from one of these three countries, all of which have been stricken with a deadly Ebola outbreak. Approximately 4,500 patients have recently died from the virus in West Africa, according to World Health Organization estimates.
An estimated 150 travelers land in the United States each day from one of these countries, but none of those flights land in South Carolina.
Catherine Templeton, director of the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control, has asked U.S. Customs and Border Protection for help. The federal agency requires international travelers to fill out a form upon arriving in this country. Among other questions, travelers are required to indicate their final U.S. destination. Some of those 150 travelers landing in the United States each day are likely coming to South Carolina.
Templeton said this information would be useful so that her department could monitor the threat of Ebola in this state.
"We are going to see more cases in the United States, but we're going to do everything we can to contain those cases," Templeton said during a news conference at the Medical University Hospital on Thursday. "We are not West Africa."
The customs department has not yet agreed to honor her request.
In a related announcement, the Medical University Hospital is the first trauma center in the state to voluntarily accept patients with the Ebola virus from other facilities, should the need arise.
"We are not inviting Ebola patients from outside South Carolina to come to MUSC," said Sarah King, a spokeswoman for the hospital. "What we want to do is reassure our citizenry that we are prepared if Ebola comes to Charleston."