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 Amanda Tiffany, an epidemiologist with the humanitarian aid group,
was one of at least 10 people blocked from attending the annual
meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH)
on threat of quarantine, conference officials said, adding that they
oppose the policy.
"Unfortunately my colleague, Amanda Tiffany, was not allowed to
travel to ASTMH due to fear of quarantine upon arrival," said Carrie
Teicher, a doctor with Doctors Without Borders, also known by its
French name, Médecins Sans Frontières, or MSF, speaking at the
conference."She hopes these regulations get changed quickly as the
stigma American and other colleagues are now facing is great,"
Teicher added.
Those planning to attend the Nov. 2-6 conference, expected to number
more than 4,000, were warned in a letter sent last week by
Louisiana's Department of Health and Hospitals to stay away if they
had been in Sierra Leone, Liberia or Guinea within the past 21 days
or had been in contact with Ebola patients.
The worst Ebola outbreak on record, centered in those three West
African countries, has killed nearly 5,000 people.
"We see no utility in you traveling to New Orleans to simply be
confined to your room," the state health department said.
Conference organizers, calling the state's quarantine policy
"outside of the scientific understanding of Ebola transmission,"
said it disagreed with Louisiana's rules.
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Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, a Republican widely seen as holding
2016 presidential ambitions, has been among those calling for a
travel ban to the United States from countries affected by Ebola.
Mandatory quarantines issued by some U.S. states for doctors and
nurses returning from West Africa's Ebola outbreak have created a
chilling effect on aid work there, MSF has said.
(Additional reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by Eric
Walsh)
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