Expert: 'Unusual' That Ebola Medical Staff Is Not Quarantined
Thursday, 23 Oct 2014 10:45 PM
By Greg Richter
Infectious disease expert Dr. Robert Lahita says he is surprised medical personnel who have worked directly with Ebola patients aren't automatically quarantined.
Lahita, a professor of medicine at Rutgers University, told Fox News Channel's "The Kelly File" on Thursday that Dr. Craig Spencer, who tested positive for Ebola earlier in the day in New York City, followed the prescribed protocols, even though he went out in public before exhibiting a fever and diarrhea.
Spencer isolated himself in his Harlem apartment after exhibiting symptoms. Health officials say the disease cannot be transmitted by a nonsymptomatic person, and even then only by exposure to bodily fluids.
"It's a little bit unusual to me," that people who have treated Ebola patients in West Africa wouldn't automatically be quarantined for the 21-day incubation period, Lahita said. "I would think that we would keep our eyes and ears on such an individual for a period of time. I'm a little bit surprised that somebody like that would be allowed to just come back into the country willy-nilly."
Dr. Marc Siegel, Fox News' medical correspondent, was more critical.
"Back in the 14th century with the plague … they took people who took care of plague victims and they separated them from society for 14 days," Siegel said. "Can't we do that here? … I don't think we should wait for symptoms."
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