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CDC Chief Announces New Shift In Ebola Protocols

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WASHINGTON--The  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention leader Dr. Tom Frieden announced changes to the U.S. response to Ebola and the guidance federal agencies are giving to state and local governments.

The new protocol stops short of the mandatory 21-day quarantines that some states have begun requiring. Instead, Frieden said, it relies on individual assessment and close monitoring. He also detailed several categories of risk among both airline passengers and the medical volunteers who he said have been doing "heroic work" in West Africa.

"High risk" individuals, Frieden said, include those who have cared for an Ebola patient and were accidentally poked by a needle or lacked protective gear. Those people, Frieden said, should isolate themselves in their homes and avoid all forms of mass transit and large gatherings.

Those in the group would also undergo "direct active monitoring," in which a medical worker watches as the person's temperature is taken and speaks with him regularly about his condition.

The "some risk" category, Frieden said, includes those who have lived in the same household as an Ebola patient but haven't had direct contact with him, as well as health care workers who have cared for patients without any equipment problems. He stressed that it would be dangerous to treat such medical workers as "pariahs," as it might discourage staff who are trying to prevent the disease's spread.

Frieden also said that...each day, slightly fewer than 100 people travel to the U.S. from Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone,  citing the airport-arrivals screening program that began this month. Most of those travelers, he added, are either U.S. citizens or legal residents. Of more than 807 people who have been evaluated, Frieden said, 46 of them are health workers.

Read complete article

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/10/27/359362108/cdc-chief-announces-new-shift-in-ebola-protocols

UPDATED  CDC link:

Interim CDC  Guidance for Monitoring and Movement of Persons with Potential Ebola Virus Exposure

 http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/exposure/monitoring-and-movement-of-persons-with-exposure.html

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