|
 Ebola has killed more than 5,450 people in West Africa since March
in the disease's worst outbreak on record, striking hardest in
Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, which are among the world's least
developed countries.
"By far and away what is needed most in West Africa are care
providers who can help," Paul Biddinger, director of the Harvard
School of Public Health Emergency Preparedness Program, said during
a panel discussion about the disease on Tuesday.
But "because of a fear of stigma, of being involuntarily quarantined
... people don’t want to necessarily subject themselves to this, and
that is tragic."
The United States Agency for International Development last week
said that applications from medical personnel volunteering to work
in West Africa had fallen by about 17 percent since the end of
October, when mandatory quarantine rules were put into effect in New
York and New Jersey.
In one of the highest-profile cases, a nurse from Maine who treated
Ebola patients in West Africa was isolated in a plastic tent at a
hospital in New Jersey for four days in October despite showing no
symptoms.
Michael VanRooyen, director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative,
said U.S. public officials needed to do better communicating clearly
about the disease, and implementing precautions based on medical
evidence and not fear.
"It directly impacts our ability to recruit volunteers," he said.
[to top of second column] |
Ebola rates have accelerated in Sierra Leone while easing in
neighboring Guinea and Liberia, prompting the head of a special U.N.
mission on Ebola to admit on Monday that it would not meet targets
for containing the outbreak by early December.
The United States has seen several Ebola cases and two deaths, all
but two of the cases contracted in West Africa. Harvard's Biddinger
said America's vast medical resources make a West Africa-style
outbreak in the United States unlikely.
Despite pledges of hundreds of millions of dollars in aid and the
deployment of troops by the United States and Britain, the weakness
of healthcare systems and infrastructure in the worst-affected
countries has hampered the fight.
(Reporting by Richard Valdmanis)
[© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2014 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
