Seven American aid workers are quarantined in the new U.S. isolation facility in Kenya, the first known people to use the facility, Reuters reported.
The U.S. government is building the 50-bed bio-isolation unit designed for asymptomatic Americans exposed to the Ebola virus while in the Democratic Republic of Congo or Uganda on an air force base in central Kenya. Construction of the facility was originally blocked by a Kenyan court on May 29, and has faced criticism from U.S. and foreign experts. However, construction has continued.
The seven Americans voluntarily moved to the facility for monitoring and isolation, a U.S. Health Department official told Reuters. All of them work with Samaritan’s Purse, an evangelical Christian humanitarian aid group and only one has potential high risk exposure.
“Kenyan authorities have authorized their movement into the facility under the observation of the U.S. Public Health Service clinicians,” the official said, and the decision was taken “strictly out of an abundance of caution.”
The quarantine comes three days after the Trump administration blocked American citizens in Congo from returning to the U.S. on commercial flights. They will only be allowed to board a commercial flight to the U.S. if they have spent at least 21 days outside Congo.
Humanitarian aid groups and infectious disease experts are speaking out against the administration’s Ebola policies, citing the impact it will have on U.S. medical professionals traveling to help contain the outbreak.
“The Trump Administration’s decision to further complicate U.S. travelers’ return from a country facing an Ebola outbreak blatantly ignores the world-class infectious diseases care available right here at home, by the United States’ National Emerging Special Pathogens Training and Education Center network and the U.S. Regional Emerging Special Pathogen Treatment Centers,” Ronald Nahass, MD, president of Infectious Diseases Society of America, said in a July 17 news release shared with Becker’s. “In medicine, a physician’s duty of care obligation is absolute—once a relationship is established, you cannot walk away and claim the patient ‘assumed the risk’ of their illness. By the same ethical standard, our government cannot accept the national security benefits of these heroes’ sacrifices while simultaneously pretending it has no duty of care to bring them safely home. To outsource their emergency medical care to foreign allies while our own specialized facilities sit idle is a profound breach of that covenant. The Title 49 order puts another nail in the coffin of the United States’ status as a world leader in humanitarian response.”
Here are five other updates to know.
1. As of July 20, the Ebola outbreak now has 2,344 confirmed cases and 930 deaths — making it the fastest-growing outbreak in history, the World Health Organization said. Two months in, the 2018-2019 Ebola outbreak in Congo took more than 10 months to reach 2,000 confirmed cases, by comparison.
“We’ve seen the fastest growth in a single month since the outbreak started and of all the Ebola outbreaks that we have managed,” Chikwe Ihekweazu, MD, the WHO health emergencies chief, told the United Nations. “You have to imagine that this is a fire. There’s something driving the fire in its heart, and it’s also expanding at the same time.”
2. The outbreak continues to outpace response efforts, with more than 80% of new infections being detected outside known contact lists. Two-thirds of deaths occurred in communities where people never received treatment in a health facility.
3. Congo now has more than 800 beds, 16 labs and contact follow-up rates have risen to almost 80%. More than 21,000 community health workers are also being trained to respond to the outbreak. But amid growing response, the WHO and Africa CDC said they still face a $400 million funding gap.
4. By contrast, the last patient being treated for Ebola in Uganda has been discharged, and the country begins its 42-day countdown before it can officially be declared Ebola-free — assuming no new cases are found, BBC reported. The first case in Uganda was confirmed in May in a man who had traveled to Congo. In all, Uganda has had 20 confirmed cases and two deaths.
5. Canada issued a temporary border ban for any foreigners who have been in Congo in the last 21 days, according to a July 19 Canadian Public Health alert. The ban, which went into effect July 20, does not effect Canadian nationals. The ban will be in effect until Aug. 29.
“These temporary border measures are out of an abundance of caution, as the health risk to Canadians from Ebola disease is considered low, and no travel-related cases have been reported in Canada to date,” the public health alert said.
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