Health officials oppose US plan to treat Ebola-exposed Americans overseas

Healthcare officials in the US, including former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials, on June 1 warned Congress against adopting a proposed policy to treat Americans exposed to Ebola in Kenya or countries in the European Union.

The officials, including infectious disease physician Krutika Kuppalli, emergency physicians Debra Houry and Craig Spencer, and epidemiologist Anne Schuchat, argued in an open letter the policy would be a departure from the longstanding practice of medical repatriation and raise serious clinical risks.

“This policy raises profound clinical, ethical, operational, and legal concerns,” the letter said, adding that such measures could discourage frontline responders from deploying to regions affected by outbreaks and undermine global response efforts.

“At a time when outbreak response efforts are already strained, this is a dangerous precedent. We are equally concerned about the diversion of resources toward establishing ad hoc quarantine, isolation and treatment infrastructure overseas rather than directing urgently needed resources toward controlling the outbreak at its source.”

Last week, Washington said it was setting up a facility in Kenya to quarantine US citizens who had been exposed to Ebola, and would not bring them home if they developed symptoms, but instead send them to a third country, as US President Donald Trump’s administration seeks to keep all cases out of US territory.

The plan to send Americans exposed to the outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda to Kenya has drawn opposition from many Kenyans.

A Kenyan court has ordered the temporary suspension of a plan to set up a quarantine facility in the country after a lawsuit argued the site could endanger public health. REUTERS