HEALTH-EBOLA/QUARANTINE REAX Policy of mandatory quarantines fuels debate in the U.S.

Record ID: 708161

  • Title: HEALTH-EBOLA/QUARANTINE REAX Policy of mandatory quarantines fuels debate in the U.S.
  • Date: 27th October 2014
  • Summary: BALTIMORE, MARYLAND, UNITED STATES (OCTOBER 27, 2014) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) DR. ANTHONY HARRIS, PRESIDENT-ELECT, SOCIETY FOR HEALTHCARE EPIDEMIOLOGY OF AMERICA, SAYING: "If you base policies not on evidence, you then end up creating more problems than you solve. You may temporarily diminish hysteria or fear, but you haven't done the key aspect, which is, we want to find the best way to control Ebola in the United States and Ebola internationally to put this to an end." KENEMA, SIERRA LEONE (RECENT) (REUTERS) VARIOUS MEDICAL STAFF WRITING PATIENTS INFORMATION DOWN MEDICAL STAFF SCREENING PEOPLE
  • Embargoed: 11th November 2014 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Sierra Leone
  • Country: Sierra Leone
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA6UCE3QBDIKGF2FCDZ4UA3Q5LS
  • Story Text: Federal health officials on Monday (October 27) called for voluntary home quarantine for people at the highest risk for Ebola infection but said most medical workers returning from West Africa would require daily monitoring without isolation.
    The announcement by Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), ran counter to the mandatory quarantines being imposed on returning doctors and nurses by a handful of states including New York and New Jersey.
    As debate continued in the U.S. around the mandatory quarantines, Dr. Anthony Harris, the President-Elect of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, criticized the practice.
    "I don't think someone should be legally bound to be quarantined when little to no risk of transmission," he said.
    With thousands already dead from Ebola in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, concerns are high in the United States about stopping its spread. Some state officials, grappling with an unfamiliar public health threat, have called federal restrictions placed on people traveling from Ebola-affected countries insufficient to protect Americans and have imposed tougher measures like automatic quarantines on returning medical workers.
    The case of nurse Kaci Hickox, put into quarantine on Friday (October 24) under a New Jersey policy that exceeded precautions adopted by the U.S. government, underscored the dilemma that federal and state officials are facing.
    In an interview with Reuters Television, Harris advocated for healthcare workers who have been contact with Ebola patients to self-monitor and stay in regular contact with the public health department.
    "A health care worker knows enough about Ebola, especially a healthcare worker who has been taking care of these patients in west Africa, to know that it's advantageous to them to keep in close contact with the public health department and the minute they become symptomatic to have that taken care of," he said.
    New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who has defended his state's policy of automatic quarantine for medical workers returning from treating patients in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, told reporters he did not reverse the policy in allowing her to be discharged from the hospital and to return to Maine.
    Four people have been diagnosed with Ebola in the United States. The only patient now being treated for Ebola in the country is a New York doctor, Craig Spencer, who was diagnosed last Thursday (October 23). He had worked with Doctors Without Borders treating Ebola patients in Guinea.
    The governors of New York and New Jersey implemented the mandatory quarantine a day after Spencer tested positive.
    Harris said Ebola needed to be controlled at the source in West Africa, and maintained that local governments need to create policies based on scientific evidence, not public fear.
    "If you base policies not on evidence, you then end up creating more problems than you solve. You may temporarily diminish hysteria or fear, but you haven't done the key aspect, which is, we want to find the best way to control Ebola in the United States and Ebola internationally to put this to an end," he said.
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