New York

US airlines have said little publicly about political pressure to close the country's borders to travellers from Ebola-ravaged countries in West Africa, but in private they have briefed government officials about the challenges to implementing a ban, industry sources told Reuters.

Several dozen US lawmakers have called for a ban on visitors from Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, where the world's worst Ebola outbreak on record has killed almost 5,000 people. Since late September, a Liberian man who travelled by airline to Texas and an American doctor who lives in New York and flew home after treating Ebola patients in Guinea, have been diagnosed with the virus after their arrival. The Liberian died on Oct 8 and the doctor is hospitalised in a specialised ward.