CDC: No Quarantine for Returning Medics

CDC: No Quarantine for Returning Medics
Federal health officials have revamped guidelines for doctors and nurses returning home to the United States from treating Ebola patients in West Africa, stopping well short of controversial mandatory quarantines that are being imposed by some American states. Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, called for isolation of people at the highest risk of Ebola, but said medical workers returning from hardest-hit Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone would require daily monitoring without isolation. He warned against turning doctors and nurses who strive to tackle Ebola in West Africa into “pariahs.” The new guidelines are not mandatory and states will keep the right to institute stricter policies, as has been done by New York, New Jersey, Florida, and Illinois. The U.S. Army also has enacted mandatory quarantines for soldiers who responded to the crisis in West Africa.

Read it at Reuters