Gov. Rick Scott calls on CDC to help prevent Ebola in Florida
Gov. Rick Scott on Thursday called on the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to reach out to passengers on a plane that apparently carried an Ebola patient the day before it stopped at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
“The CDC has already admitted that they have been slow to respond to developing cases of Ebola, and we do not want to take any risk of Ebola coming to Florida,” Scott said in a statement. “Their immediate action to contact all these passengers is essential to explaining any potential health risks to themselves and their family.”
The CDC did not respond to emails from the Herald/Times.
There have been no cases of Ebola reported in Florida.
Healthcare worker Amber Joy Vinson took a Frontier Airlines flight from Cleveland to Dallas on Monday night. She tested positive for Ebola the following day.
Scott said the plane Vinson traveled on went to Fort Lauderdale Tuesday.
The CDC has reached out to passengers who were on the flight with Vinson from Cleveland to Dallas. But as of late Thursday, the public health agency had not reached out to passengers on subsequent flights.
Scott said he was not satisfied with the response.
“I am asking them to expand their contacts [Thursday] to include all passengers traveling on that plane for the full 24 hours after Amber’s flight,” he said in the statement.
Scott has also asked the CDC for a conference call with public health officials in Florida and additional supplies.
“We asked the CDC for more testing kits,” Scott told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Thursday. “We got three out of the 30 we asked for. We asked for more protective gear. We haven’t gotten that yet so we purchased them on our own.”
Scott, a Republican who is seeking re-election on Nov. 4, will hold a press conference on the issue Friday morning at the Broward County Aviation Department in Dania Beach.
Contact Kathleen McGrory at kmcgrory@MiamiHerald.com.
This story was originally published October 16, 2014 at 7:22 PM with the headline "Gov. Rick Scott calls on CDC to help prevent Ebola in Florida."