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Ebola outbreak sparks finger-pointing in Senate race

As screening of passengers arriving from west Africa began Thursday at O'Hare International Airport, the Ebola virus got politicized in the race for the U.S. Senate seat in Illinois.

Republican State Sen. Jim Oberweis criticized the Centers for Disease Control and his rival, incumbent Sen. Dick Durbin, for being "asleep at the switch."

Concerns about Ebola in the U.S. are rising after two Texas nurses were infected after treating a patient who died of the virus. One of the nurses, Amber Vinson, flew from Cleveland to Dallas Monday on a Frontier Airlines flight.

"On a daily basis, we are getting confusing and conflicting information," Oberweis of Sugar Grove said in a statement to the Daily Herald.

"There is no clarity from the federal government. The public is confused, as are hospitals and other caregivers. Certainly, some type of flight restrictions should already have been in place."

Durbin, speaking at an event in Schaumburg, did not call for flight restrictions.

Instead, the focus should be on proper screening of passengers before boarding planes in Africa and monitoring passengers when they arrive in the U.S., Durbin said.

The Centers for Disease Control instituted screening of passengers arriving from Ebola hot spots - Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone - at JFK International Airport in New York last week. O'Hare, Washington-Dulles, Newark and Atlanta international airports followed this week.

"If we limit access out of those three countries that are hardest hit, many infected people may move to neighboring countries and try to exit Africa through those countries, spreading the disease," Durbin said. He added that restrictions have to be done "thoughtfully and carefully."

The Springfield Democrat cited a conversation with Centers for Disease Control Director Tom Frieden who told him, "'that very few countries in the world have faced a health crisis of this magnitude.'

"I will concede we are learning as we go," Durbin said. "There are good procedures in place and I applaud the efforts by the president to make sure we protect the American people."

As to the criticism about dropping the ball, Durbin spokesman Ron Holmes said, "this is literally an issue of life and death that shouldn't be politicized."

There's been questions why Vinson was allowed to board the plane and if her case was properly monitored by the CDC.

"We are learning, but we are learning as fast as we can because lives are at stake here," Durbin said.

There are no direct flights from west Africa into O'Hare, the Chicago Department of Aviation said.

Since it's not a very common trip, it's hard to give a "typical" routing for flights from Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea to O'Hare, Travelocity's Ken Nowak said.

But as an example, flights into Chicago Oct. 25 from Sierra Leone stopped at European airports in Brussels, Belgium and Frankfurt, Germany, according to Travelocity's website.

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