Belize Joins Caribbean Nations in Ebola-Based Travel Bans

Belize became the third Caribbean
nation to limit visitors coming from West African nations hit by
the Ebola virus as some U.S. lawmakers urge President Barack
Obama to consider similar steps.

Belize’s government will stop issuing visas for nationals
from Nigeria, Guinea and Liberia, Immigration Minister Godwin
Hulse said today. Citizens from Sierra Leone, who don’t need
visas to enter Belize, will also be banned. Travelers who have
visited any of the four countries in the past 30 days will be
prohibited from entering Belize, he added.

Jamaica and the eastern Caribbean island of St. Vincent
earlier this week enacted similar restrictions as concerns that
the deadly virus, which has spread in isolated cases among
people who traveled from West Africa to Texas and Spain, could
take root elsewhere.

“We are immediately issuing a stop on issuance of visas to
persons coming from the West Africa area whom we consider high
risk,” Hulse told reporters today.

Prime Minister Dean Barrow said he denied port access
yesterday to a Carnival Corp. cruise ship with a health worker
from the Dallas hospital that diagnosed the first U.S. case of
Ebola. He said that he refused a request from the U.S. State
Department to allow the woman disembark in Belize so she could
be flown to the U.S.

“It would have exposed Belizean health workers, Belizean
security agents, Belizean front line officials,” Barrow said.

The hospital worker hasn’t shown any symptoms of the
disease, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said today.

U.S. House Speaker John Boehner has asked Obama to consider
a temporary ban on travel to the U.S. from the countries that
are the center of the Ebola outbreak. Obama today appointed
former White House aide Ron Klain to coordinate the U.S.
response to the virus.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Michael McDonald in Guatemala City at
mmcdonald87@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Bill Faries at
wfaries@bloomberg.net;
Elyse Tanouye at
etanouye@bloomberg.net
Andrew Pollack