By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. public health officials issued a directive requiring airlines to disclose passenger names and other information about those who have recently been in eight southern African countries and will turn that over to local and state public health officials, according to documents seen by Reuters.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told airlines in a letter late Tuesday that they must collect and turn over names and contact information for any travelers who within 14 days have been to Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, citing “the emergence of the Omicron variant of the virus that causes COVID-19.”
CDC said it “will provide the contact information of these passengers to jurisdictional state and local public health
partners for public health follow-up. This follow-up may include recommendations for potential postarrival viral testing and quarantine and isolation.”
Effective Nov. 8, the CDC required all airlines to collect contact tracing information from all international air passengers but had not required them to turn over those names.
The directive, which took effect late Tuesday and was seen by Reuters, requires airlines to turn over the information within 24 hours of passengers arriving in the United States who have been in one of the eight African countries.
The United States effective Monday barred nearly all foreign nationals if they have been in one of the southern African countries.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
