US Wants to Treat Ebola-Exposed Citizens Abroad, Doctors Protest
JAKARTA - US health officials have rejected Washington's plan to treat US citizens exposed to Ebola in Kenya or an EU country. They assess that the policy is risky, deviates from medical repatriation practices, and could weaken the response to the outbreak in the field.
Dilansir Arab News, Selasa, 2 Juni, sejumlah pejabat dan pakar kesehatan, termasuk mantan pejabat Centers for Disease Control and Prevention atau CDC, menyampaikan peringatan itu kepada Kongres AS melalui surat terbuka pada Senin.
They include infectious disease doctor Krutika Kuppalli, emergency room doctors Debra Houry and Craig Spencer, and epidemiologist Anne Schuchat.
In the letter, they said the plan posed clinical, ethical, operational, and legal problems. Medical repatriation means bringing home sick or high-risk citizens or officers to be treated in their own country.
"This policy raises deep clinical, ethical, operational, and legal issues," they wrote in the letter.
The experts are concerned that this new policy will make frontline health workers think twice before being sent to the outbreak area. In fact, when an outbreak occurs, medical personnel who quickly go to the location are needed.
They also assessed that resources should be directed to controlling the outbreak at its source, not building quarantine, isolation, and emergency treatment facilities abroad.
"At a time when efforts to handle the outbreak are under pressure, this is a dangerous precedent," the letter read.
Last week, Washington said it was setting up facilities in Kenya to quarantine US citizens exposed to Ebola. Quarantine means restricting the movement of people at risk of infection, even if they are not necessarily sick, so that the disease does not spread.
If the US citizen shows symptoms, they will not be brought home to the United States. The US government plans to send them to a third country. This policy comes as President Donald Trump's administration seeks to prevent Ebola cases from entering the US.
According to Arab News, plans to send US citizens exposed to the outbreak in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda to Kenya sparked rejection from many Kenyans.
The Kenyan court has also ordered a temporary halt to the construction of the quarantine facility. The lawsuit says the location could endanger public health.