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Ban Ki-moon criticises Ebola restrictions put on healthcare workers Ban Ki-moon criticises Ebola restrictions placed on healthcare workers
(35 minutes later)
UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon declared on Monday that he was “concerned” by restrictions put in place in the US and elsewhere for healthcare workers returning from treating Ebola patients in west Africa, saying they should not be “stigmatised”. The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, criticised restrictions being placed on healthcare workers returning to the US after treating Ebola patients in west Africa, as the Pentagon quarantined American soldiers who had been helping to tackle the outbreak.
Ban’s statement comes after the governors of New York and New Jersey relaxed some quarantine measures for returning healthcare workers. The quarantines had been heavily criticized by the White House and medical professionals. After the governors of New York and New Jersey relaxed new quarantine measures that were criticised by the White House and medical professionals, Ban said in a statement that he was concerned by controls being placed on medics arriving in the US and elsewhere.
The orders led New Jersey to keep an asymptomatic nurse in a quarantine tent for three days, with and a portable toilet and no shower. The New Jersey governor said she will be released on Monday and allowed to return to her home to Maine. “Returning health workers are exceptional people who are giving of themselves for humanity,” said Ban in a statement released by the UN. “They should not be subjected to restrictions that are not based on science. Those who develop infections should be supported, not stigmatised.”
Ban called healthcare workers in west Africa “exceptional people who are giving of themselves for humanity”. The secretary general’s intervention came shortly after New Jersey authorities said that a nurse who was confined to a quarantine tent with a portable toilet and no shower, despite showing no symptoms after returning to the US from treating patients in Sierra Leone, would be released on Monday and allowed to return to her home to Maine.However, the US Department of Defense confirmed that about a dozen troops who had been in Liberia as part of an operation to help tackle the Ebola outbreak were being quarantined in Italy after returning to base in Vicenza and reportedly met by police in hazmat suits.
A US defense official told the Guardian the soldiers were being monitored at a “separate location” out of “an abundance of caution”, adding: “None of these individuals have shown any symptoms of exposure.” The official would not comment on the terms of the quarantine. But a Pentagon spokesman told Reuters the troops “are not allowed to leave.”
The official said that among those being monitored is Major General Darryl Williams, the US army’s commander in Africa, who has been leading the US effort against the virus. Williams visited Ebola treatment centres, said the official, who could not confirm whether other troops had come into contact with infected people. “None them were treating people. None of them are healthcare workers,” the official said.
After initially saying that some US troops would come into contact with patients, the Pentagon retracted this earlier this month and said that some soldiers would be involved with the testing of blood from people who displayed symptoms associated with Ebola.
Dozens more troops are due to return to base from Liberia later on Monday and in the coming days. “There has been no decision to implement this force wide and any such decision would be made by the secretary of defense,” the official said.