‘Draconian’ US Ebola quarantines called into question

© Bryan Thomas/Getty Images/AFP | A young man, dressed in a biohazard costume, stands on the corner of 546 West 147th Street on October 25, 2014 in New York City, where a doctor was recently diagnosed with Ebola after returning from Guinea

France 24

Latest update : 2014-10-26

Tough quarantine rules imposed by US states for those returning from Ebola-hit West Africa were criticized by one of the country’s top health officials Sunday, who warned they could deter aid workers from going there to help fight the epidemic.

Florida followed New York, New Jersey and Illinois to become the fourth US state Sunday to declare a 21-day mandatory quarantine for anyone arriving with a risk of having contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea – the three West African countries worst hit by the disease.

But the director of the US’ National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci, warned that such measures could prove counterproductive, while describing them as “a little bit draconian”.

“I don’t want to be directly criticising the decision that was made but we have to be careful that there are unintended consequences,” he told NBC’s “Meet the Press” shortly before Florida’s announcement that it was also imposing mandatory quarantines.

In a later interview with CNN, Fauci said the best way to protect the US from Ebola was to stop the spread of the disease in Africa.

“And one of the best ways to stop it in Africa is to get health workers who are going there and helping them with their problem," he said. "When they come back, they need to be treated in a way that doesn't disincentivise them from going there.”

Fauci also questioned the scientific reasoning of mandatory quarantines even for those who showed no symptoms of the disease.

Scientific evidence "tells us people who are not ill, who don't have symptoms, with whom you don't come into contact with body fluids, they are not a threat, they are not going to spread it”, he said.

‘Criminals and prisoners’

The quarantine rules, abruptly imposed after a New York City doctor was diagnosed with the disease on Thursday after coming home from treating patients in Guinea, have also been blasted by a nurse who was quarantined in New Jersey after returning from Sierra Leone.

Kaci Hickox, who says she was held for hours of questioning after landing at Newark Airport Friday and then transferred to a hospital isolation tent, warned the quarantine measures risked making health workers feel like “criminals and prisoners”.

“I am scared that, like me, they will arrive and see a frenzy of disorganization, fear and, most frightening, quarantine,” wrote Hickox, who tested negative for Ebola, wrote in an article published on Saturday by The Dallas Morning News on its website.

Despite the criticism, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie defended his state’s quarantine measures Sunday.

Asked to respond to Fauci’s comment that it is not good science to quarantine people when they’re not symptomatic, Christie said, “I don’t believe that when you’re dealing with something as serious as this that we can count on a voluntary system.”

“This is government’s job. If anything else, the government’s job is to protect the safety and health of our citizens,” he told the “Fox News Sunday” program.

Asked whether the new rules would discourage health workers from going to West Africa, Christie added: “Folks that are willing to take that step and willing to volunteer also understand that it’s in their interest and in the public health’s interest to have a 21-day period thereafter if they’ve been directly exposed to people with the virus.”

Ebola has killed almost half of more than 10,000 people diagnosed with the disease - predominantly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea - although the true toll is far higher, according to the World Health Organization.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, REUTERS)