Situation Report

NPR                                                  Oct. 29, 2014
By Gregory Warner

There are all kinds of theories why Ebola hasn't arrived in Ivory Coast, despite the fact that it shares a long and very porous border with two Ebola-afflicted countries, Liberia and Guinea....

  Mumadou Traore, a field coordinator for CARE International, says the Ivory Coast's French bureaucracy is a "blessing"    when it comes to Ebola.

Dr. Seydou Coulibaly is the regional health director of Tompki county, which shares the longest border with Liberia and Guinea. He says that in the first weeks of the outbreak, before official prevention directives were issued from the capital, he was telling clinics and hospitals to send him daily Ebola watch reports. He gets a hundred a day. Even before the borders were sealed, he was sending health workers to take people's temperature when they crossed. He's also arranged trainings for schoolteachers and soldiers.

All these efforts will help, he says — maybe not to prevent the virus from coming to the country but at least the first eventual case will be well-managed. That's the main objective.

SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS                                                        Oct. 29, 2014

By Julia Prodis Sulek

California on Wednesday became the latest state to order a 21-day quarantine for travelers who have been in close contact with Ebola patients.

In an attempt to avoid the criticism lodged against New York, New Jersey and Maine that had blanket quarantine orders, however, California will allow county health agencies to impose the quarantine on a case-by-case basis.

By working with county health departments to assess the individual risks, the California Department of Public Health said it "respects the individual circumstances of each traveler while protecting and preserving the public health."

Quarantine can range from observation and monitoring to the "limitation on his or her freedom of movement."

In the Bay Area, a Stanford doctor who returned last week from Liberia where he was treating Ebola patients was already being monitored by the San Mateo County Department of Public Health. The department coordinated with the CDC and San Francisco International Airport when Dr. Colin Bucks arrived late last week. He had no symptoms of the disease and came to an agreement with health officials to avoid contact with others but can leave the house for limited activities, such as jogging alone.

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ASSOCIATED PRESS                                      Oct. 29, 2014

By Clarence Roy-Macaulay

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel briefs reporters at the Pentagon, Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2014, on the military health care system. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)

ASSOCIATED PRESS                                  Oct. 29, 2014
By Robert Burns

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Wednesday approved a recommendation by military leaders that all U.S. troops returning from Ebola response missions in West Africa be kept in supervised isolation for 21 days.

 The move goes beyond precautions recommended by the Obama administration for civilians, although President Barack Obama has made clear he feels the military's situation is different from that of civilians, in part because troops are not in West Africa by choice.

In explaining his decision, Hagel noted that the military has more people in Africa helping with the Ebola effort than any other segment of the U.S. government.

 "This is also a policy that was discussed in great detail by the communities, by the families of our military men and women, and they very much wanted a safety valve on this," he said at a public forum in Washington.