Texas Republican hits State Department on Ebola

Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) is blaming the State Department for a lack of vigilance against the Ebola threat amid reports that an infected man from Liberia falsified travel documents to enter the U.S.

Burgess said the Obama administration needs to “better control” people traveling into the country from areas where Ebola is rampant. Liberian officials said Thursday that the man who brought the virus into the U.S. had lied about his exposure to the deadly virus before boarding a flight to Dallas.

{mosads}“My only question is, where was our State Department? Why weren’t they as involved in this as the Liberian government?” Burgess said in an interview with The Hill.

Burgess said while the U.S. does not have the authority to halt all flights within countries like Liberia, American government officials should more closely scrutinize passengers from those areas.

“Here was an individual who traveled after he had a pretty good idea that he was in a situation where he very likely was exposed to the illness,” he said, adding that the U.S. government should have identified the threat. 

Burgess, who represents north Texas, also questioned the efforts by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to prepare hospitals across the country for possible Ebola cases.

Burgess said he was concerned that the Dallas hospital that treated the Ebola-infected patient, identified as Thomas Eric Duncan, was not adequately briefed on procedures by the CDC. The hospital has drawn criticism for failing to test Duncan for Ebola when he first arrived at the hospital. 

“Perhaps the CDC had not been emphatic enough in presenting that information. If information was delivered to the hospital, maybe there wasn’t any follow through,” he said.