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Fauci: Quarantine Can Have Unintended Consequences

| October 26, 2014 Comment

Fauci: Quarantine can have unintended consequences – A top federal health official said Sunday, mandatory 21-day quarantines on health care workers returning from Ebola-ravaged West Africa, like those put in place by three states, can have the unintended consequence of discouraging them from volunteering.

New York, New Jersey, and Illinois are the states that have now imposed mandatory quarantine, after Dr. Craig Spencer, a Doctors Without Borders physician who treated patients in Guinea, was diagnosed with Ebola last Thursday..

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that as a physician and scientist, he would have recommended against a quarantine. According to him, active and direct monitoring can be as effective as quarantine as Ebola is transmitted only through direct contact with bodily fluids of those infected.

Dr. Fauci said, “The best way to protect us is to stop the epidemic in Africa, and we need those health care workers so we do not want to put them in a position where it makes it very, very uncomfortable for them to even volunteer to go.”

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