Fears of Ebola transmission via ocean vessel entered the public imagination in 1995 with the Dustin Hoffman movie “Outbreak,” which featured an African monkey carrying an Ebola-like disease on a container ship headed to the U.S., where the disease wreaks havoc on the country's population. A real-life outbreak of Ebola took place in Zaire only a few months after the film was released.
Throughout history, big-budget Hollywood movies have played on the world’s fears of spreading deadly infections through travel, shipping and ill-timed sneezes.
Fears of Ebola transmission via ocean vessel entered the public imagination in 1995 with the Dustin Hoffman movie “Outbreak,” which featured an African monkey carrying an Ebola-like disease on a container ship headed to the U.S., where the disease wreaks havoc on the country's population. A real-life outbreak of Ebola took place in Zaire only a few months after the film was released.
Throughout history, big-budget Hollywood movies have played on the world’s fears of spreading deadly infections through travel, shipping and ill-timed sneezes.
But carriers and other transport companies are doing their best to dispel those fears as shipping continues between the Ebola-stricken countries of Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Guinea and the rest of the world. As Maersk noted in an Aug. 18 customer advisory, there is no record of the Ebola virus being transmitted via international shipping, but the logistics community is taking precautions with both its crews and cargo in light of the outbreak.
More than 1,300 people have died from Ebola during the current outbreak, which began in December in Guinea.
The International Chamber of Shipping, in coordination with the International Maritime Employers' Council and the International Transport Workers Federation, released guidelines for shipping organizations earlier this month to help stave off any possibility of crews coming in contact with Ebola.
"Everyone is deeply concerned for those suffering from the Ebola epidemic and supportive of a coordinated world response to help them," a spokesperson for the three organizations said. "In the meantime, we want to make sure that those in the world shipping industry play our part in ensuring the safety of crews visiting the affected countries and minimizing the risk of spreading the virus further."
The groups recommend that crew aboard vessels calling at the affected countries be advised of the risks, and shore leave should be reconsidered if risk of Ebola is near. Also, the guidelines recommend making no crew changes and monitoring the health of all crewmembers.
Ships from the four countries are already being scrutinized at ports of call around the world. South African news outlet IOL News recently said a Liberian container ship was quarantined in South Africa before it was cleared of Ebola threat. IHS Maritime also reported a Chinese ship from Sierra Leone heading to Cape Verde was quarantined because of fears its crew and cargo had come in contact with the virus.
According to PIERS, the data division of the JOC Group, the four West African countries stricken with Ebola sent a total of 2,862 TEUs into the United States from January through July. Liberia and Nigeria were the origin of the lion’s share of that cargo. Among the heaviest volume commodities in those containers were cocoa beans, auto parts and miscellaneous rubber products.
Just under half of those containers went to the Port of Virginia at Norfolk. The ports of New York-New Jersey, Philadelphia, Savannah and Houston received over 100 TEUs each.
A 2011 article published in Advances in Parasitology noted the transmission of Cholera in the 1800s was known to follow typical high-volume trade routes. Most instances of disease transport are tied to the movements of people and animals, but the researches also noted transport of infected mosquitoes have been intercepted on 14 of the top 20 trade routes in the world, including those from Asia to the U.S., Europe and the Mediterranean.
“With no apparent end in sight to the continued growth in global air travel and shipborne trade, we must expect the continued appearance of communicable disease pandemics, disease vector invasions and vector-borne disease movement,” the 2011 article says.
The International Air Transport Association noted the World Health Organization, as recently as mid-August, said that restrictions on travel are unnecessary. Airline hubs are low-risk for transmitting Ebola, IATA said.
"The aviation industry is taking all necessary precautions, such as introducing exit screening at certain airports," IATA said in an Aug. 18 release. "Airlines also have well-tested procedures for handling suspected cases of infection, including guidelines for isolation and care for ill passengers, and measures for disinfecting aircraft."
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