Two Americans who plan to return from West Africa to New York who had direct contact with Ebola patients have agreed to a 21-day quarantine at their homes, according to a CBS New York report.
Neither person has shown signs of Ebola virus disease, but the virus has an incubation period of 21 days. These two people will be the seventh and eighth in New York State to undergo the voluntary quarantine, according to CBS New York.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the quarantine is happening out of an abundance of caution, according to the report.
The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has taken the lives of more than 6,180 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone as of Dec. 3, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Putting travelers who return from those Ebola-stricken West African nations in quarantine has sparked debate in the U.S. Some states, like New York, have quarantine guidelines in place for people who were potentially exposed to Ebola. Americans expressed support for Ebola quarantines for healthcare workers and others who come to the U.S. from West Africa in recent polls, as did many healthcare professionals in an unofficial poll of Becker's Hospital Review readers.