Problem

Discussion of conflicting quarantine guidelines

HOMELAND SECURITY NEWSWIRE                     Oct. 30, 1014
Earlier this week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) issued new guidelines on how states should deal with travelers from Ebola-stricken regions, but a lack of federal authority to mandate such guidelines has led to conflicting strategies, varying from state to state, which includes mandatory at-home quarantine for some travelers. Under current U.S. law, the states have the authority to issue quarantine or isolation policies, and they also control the enforcement of these policies within their territories.

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http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20141030-lack-of-federal-authority-makes-fashioning-coherent-national-ebola-policy-difficult

ASSOCIATED PRESS                                      Oct. 29, 2014

By Clarence Roy-Macaulay

THE GUARDIAN                                                                                Oct. 28, 2014
By Sarah Boseley

West Africa, now in the throes of a calamitous Ebola epidemic, missed out on significant health investment over the past decade or more because it had low rates of HIV, a detailed survey of the changing health of Africa and Asia reveals.

The US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power (centre), visits an ebola emergency response centre in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Healthcare in west Africa now has the world’s attention. Photograph: Reuters

A major project called Indepth, which has looked at the causes of death of more than 110,000 people in 13 countries shows that health improved generally in those given substantial international aid to try to turn around the HIV and Aids epidemic. But west Africa, with severe poverty and low healthcare standards but relatively little HIV, did not benefit.

ASSOCIATED PRESS                                                                     Oct. 28, 2014
By RODNEY MUHUMUZA

KAMPALA, Uganda--Athorities are having trouble figuring out how many more people are getting Ebola in Liberia and Sierra Leone and where the hot spots are in those countries, harming efforts to get control of the raging, deadly outbreak, the U.N.'s top Ebola official in West Africa said Tuesday.

"The challenge is good information, because information helps tell us where the disease is, how it's spreading and where we need to target our resources," Anthony Banbury told The Associated Press by phone from the Ghanaian capital of Accra, where the U.N. Mission for Ebola Emergency Response, or UNMEER, is based.

Health experts say the key to stopping Ebola is breaking the chain of transmission by tracing and isolating those who have had contact with Ebola patients or victims. Health care workers can't do that if they don't know where new cases are emerging.

"And unfortunately, we don't have good data from a lot of areas. We don't know exactly what is happening," said Banbury, the chief of UNMEER.