Obama names Ebola czar; travel ban viewed as problematic

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama on Friday turned to a trusted adviser to lead the nation's Ebola response as efforts to clamp down on any possible route of infection from three Texas cases expanded, reaching a cruise ship at sea and multiple airline flights.

Facing renewed criticism of his handling of the Ebola risk, Obama will make Ron Klain, a former chief of staff to Vice President Joe Biden, his point man on fighting Ebola at home and in West Africa. Klain will report to national security adviser Susan Rice and to homeland security adviser Lisa Monaco, the White House said.

Klain has been out of government since leaving Biden's office during the Obama's first term. The White House said that Klain would report to national security adviser Susan Rice and to homeland security and counterterrorism adviser Lisa Monaco.

Klain, a lawyer, also served as chief of staff for Vice President Al Gore. He previously served under Attorney General Janet Reno in the Clinton administration.

Obama authorized a call-up of reserve and National Guard troops in case they are needed. His executive order would allow more forces than the up-to-4,000 already planned to be sent to West Africa, and allow for longer periods of time.

Under pressure from Republican lawmakers, Obama on Thursday expressed some openness to considering restricting travel from the three Ebola-stricken West African nations, saying he had no "philosophical objection" to imposing a travel ban on West Africa if it would keep Americans safe. But he said health and security experts continue to tell him that the screening measures already in place for travelers are more effective.

Republican Mike Leavitt, a former HHS secretary under President George W. Bush, said he sees "lots of problems" with using travel bans to contain diseases like Ebola. Leavitt was in charge of bird flu preparedness under Bush. He says that at the time, officials concluded a travel ban might not work.

About 100 to 150 people fly into the U.S. each day from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, the three nations hit hardest by Ebola.

Leavitt tells The Associated Press that a travel ban is intuitively attractive and seems so simple. But would the U.S. expand the ban to European countries if people there got exposed? And what to do about Americans who want to come home?

Thursday, during a contentious congressional hearing, Republican after Republican demanded that Obama impose a travel ban. Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., responded, "You're right, it needs to be solved in Africa. But until it is, we should not be allowing these folks in, period."

A handful of congressional Democrats also have endorsed the travel ban that's mainly been pushed by Republicans.

Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa., said the "American public loses confidence each day" - a result of the failure to protect the two nurses and other mistakes.

Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told lawmakers that the investigation into how the nurses became infected with Ebola was ongoing.

Even as he urged calm, he said the nation's hospitals must watch for people who might have been infected in West Africa. He said the CDC has fielded more than 300 calls from concerned doctors and public health officials, with no new Ebola cases uncovered.

Government officials said early Friday that they were seeking to remove a Dallas health care worker who handled an Ebola lab specimen from a Caribbean cruise, although she has shown no signs of infection. Officials in Belize would not allow the woman or her spouse do disembark there, a Carnival Cruise Lines spokeswoman said.

The cruise company said in a statement that the woman, a lab supervisor traveling with her spouse, remained in isolation "and is not deemed to be a risk to any guests or crew."

Still, under tighter travel rules placed on the staff of a Dallas hospital where two nurses caught Ebola from a Liberian patient, the woman shouldn't be on the ship.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says Ebola isn't contagious until symptoms appear. Ebola isn't spread through the air like the flu; people catch it by direct contact with a sick person's bodily fluids, such as blood or vomit.

In Dallas, the epicenter of Ebola in the U.S., officials took a tougher approach toward monitoring dozens of health care workers who were exposed to the virus while treating an infected patient who later died. The health care workers were asked to sign legally binding documents agreeing not to go to public places or use public transportation.

Those who break the agreement could face undisclosed sanctions.

The move came after two nurses who had treated Thomas Eric Duncan at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital were diagnosed with Ebola and the disclosure that one of them had flown roundtrip between the Dallas area and Cleveland before her diagnosis.

Self-monitoring was extended Thursday to people who took the same outbound flight as nurse Amber Vinson; it had been imposed earlier for passengers on the return trip. Another group being contacted: shoppers at the Akron bridal shop Vinson visited that Saturday.

Both nurses have been transferred from the Texas hospital where they treated Duncan and became infected. Nina Pham was transferred on Thursday to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and Vinson on Wednesday to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. The two facilities are among four in the United States that have specialized isolation units.

A video released by Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital showed Pham in her hospital isolation ward before her transfer, speaking to her physician, Dr. Gary Weinstein. At one point Pham begins crying, and Weinstein, dressed in full personal protection gear hands her a tissue. "I love you guys," she says. "We love you, Nina," responds Weinstein.

The two nurses have been the only cases of transmission in the U.S. Duncan was exposed to the virus in Liberia and was diagnosed after traveling to Texas.

The magnitude of the Ebola outbreak continues to grow in Africa; the World Health Organization forecast the death toll would surpass 4,500 by the end of the week.

In Geneva, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Raad al-Hussein, paired the Ebola outbreak and the Islamic State group as "twin plagues" that will cost the world many billions of dollars to overcome, and the United Nations made an urgent appeal for more money to fight the disease.

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