BBC Online :
The medical charity Doctors Without Borders has warned some mandatory US state Ebola quarantine measures are having a “chilling effect” on its work.
The group has said it may shorten some assignments to West Africa as a result of recent state restrictions. One of the charity’s volunteers has defied orders by the US state of Maine that she remain quarantined in her house after being in Sierra Leone.
There have been nearly 14,000 cases worldwide, but only nine in the US.
Doctors Without Borders – also known as Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) – has 270 international and 3,000 locally hired staff in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.
But the foreign workers now have additional concerns when heading home, said executive director Sophie Delaunay.
“There is rising anxiety and confusion among staff members in the field over what they may face when they return home upon completion of their assignments in West Africa,” she told Reuters news agency.
Some health workers are delaying returning to the US and staying in Europe for 21 days, she added, “in order to avoid facing rising stigmatisation at home and possible quarantine”.
MSF volunteer being trained MSF has thousands of staff on Ebola duty
Some people are being discouraged by their families from returning to the field, she added.
Lawyers for Kaci Hickox, a nurse recently returned to the US from treating Ebola patients in Africa, have vowed to fight a court order that would enforce a 21-day quarantine.
Maine Governor Paul LePage said the state was willing to agree to arrangements that would have allowed Hickox to go for walks, runs and bicycle rides, but not allow her to go to public places.
The medical charity Doctors Without Borders has warned some mandatory US state Ebola quarantine measures are having a “chilling effect” on its work.
The group has said it may shorten some assignments to West Africa as a result of recent state restrictions. One of the charity’s volunteers has defied orders by the US state of Maine that she remain quarantined in her house after being in Sierra Leone.
There have been nearly 14,000 cases worldwide, but only nine in the US.
Doctors Without Borders – also known as Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) – has 270 international and 3,000 locally hired staff in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.
But the foreign workers now have additional concerns when heading home, said executive director Sophie Delaunay.
“There is rising anxiety and confusion among staff members in the field over what they may face when they return home upon completion of their assignments in West Africa,” she told Reuters news agency.
Some health workers are delaying returning to the US and staying in Europe for 21 days, she added, “in order to avoid facing rising stigmatisation at home and possible quarantine”.
MSF volunteer being trained MSF has thousands of staff on Ebola duty
Some people are being discouraged by their families from returning to the field, she added.
Lawyers for Kaci Hickox, a nurse recently returned to the US from treating Ebola patients in Africa, have vowed to fight a court order that would enforce a 21-day quarantine.
Maine Governor Paul LePage said the state was willing to agree to arrangements that would have allowed Hickox to go for walks, runs and bicycle rides, but not allow her to go to public places.
