US Ebola Nurse Slams Quarantine Process

Written By Unknown on Senin, 27 Oktober 2014 | 00.27

An American nurse who treated Ebola patients in West Africa has criticised quarantine rules that are keeping her isolated in a US hospital despite testing negative.

Doctors Without Borders worker Kaci Hickox returned to the US from Sierra Leone on Friday and was taken to a New Jersey hospital.

She has tested free of the deadly virus, but was told she will be unable to leave quarantine for another 21 days when the disease's incubation period ends.

Writing in The Dallas Morning News, Ms Hickox said: "This is not a situation I would wish on anyone, and I am scared for those who will follow me.

"I am scared about how health care workers will be treated at airports when they declare that they have been fighting Ebola in West Africa.

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"I am scared that, like me, they will arrive and see a frenzy of disorganisation, fear and, most frightening, quarantine."

She said that upon telling a border official she had just arrived back, she was immediately ushered into a private room before having questions "barked" at her.

She said she was made to wait hours with little to eat.

"I... thought of many colleagues who will return home to America and face the same ordeal. Will they be made to feel like criminals and prisoners?" Ms Hickox said.

"The US must treat returning health care workers with dignity and humanity."

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Three states - New York, New Jersey and Illinois - introduced the mandatory 21-day quarantine period for anyone who has been involved in treating victims in West Africa.

Other states, including Virginia and Georgia, are also considering whether to impose the same regime.

On Sunday, a top US health official warned that quarantines for medical personnel returning from Ebola-stricken countries could have unintended consequences.

Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said quarantines could discourage qualified doctors and medics from volunteering in West Africa.

"The best way to protect us is to stop the epidemic in Africa, and we need those health care workers so we do not want to put them in a position where it makes it very, very uncomfortable for them to even volunteer to go," Dr Fauci said in one of a series of US network interviews.

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"If we don't have our people volunteering to go over there, then you're going to have other countries that are not going to do it and then the epidemic will continue to roar."

The number of Ebola cases worldwide has now exceeded 10,000, with nearly 5,000 deaths, according to the latest figures from the World Health Organisation.

The US quarantines followed the positive diagnosis of 33-year-old Craig Spencer, who fell ill days after returning to his New York City home from treating Ebola patients in Guinea.

The Doctors Without Borders worker was able to travel on the subway and go bowling before he showed the classic symptoms of the virus and had to go to hospital.

Dr Spencer, who is being held at the Bellevue Hospital in New York, was described by officials overnight on Saturday as "entering the next phase of his illness".

Video: Cured Texas Ebola Nurse 'Blessed'

A health service statement said: "The patient is awake and communicating. In addition to the required supportive therapy, we initiated antiviral therapy within hours of admission. We also administered plasma therapy yesterday."

President Barack Obama urged Americans on Saturday to be guided by the facts about Ebola and "not fear".

Meanwhile, in Sierra Leone, a team from the British Army has started training residents in how to use protective equipment to reduce the spread of the disease.

Many of the locals who have volunteered to help fight the virus have no medical background.


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