NEW YORK: In the aftermath of the incident in which a New York doctor tested positive for Ebola virus after his return from Guinea, the governors of New York and New Jersey ordered a mandatory, 21-day quarantine for all doctors and other travellers who have had contact with Ebola victims in West Africa.

Many New Yorkers and others were dismayed to learn that in the week before he was hospitalised, Dr Craig Spencer rode the subway, took a cab, went bowling, visited a coffee shop and ate at a restaurant.

The two chief executives of New York and adjacent New Jersey enforced guidelines more rigorous than those of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, which recommends voluntary quarantines.

“It’s too serious a situation to leave it to the honor system of compliance,” Cuomo of New York said.

Spencer’s illness led lawmakers on Capitol Hill, scientists and ordinary New Yorkers to wonder why he was out on the town after his return from West Africa — and why stronger steps weren’t being taken to quarantine medical workers.

An automatic three-week quarantine makes sense for anyone “with a clear exposure” to Ebola, said Dr Richard Wenzel, a Virginia Commonwealth University scientist who formerly led the International Society for Infectious Diseases.

Doctors Without Borders, the group Spencer was working for, said in a statement that that would be going too far. People with Ebola aren’t contagious until symptoms begin, and even then it requires close contact with body fluids.

“As long as a returned staff member does not experience any symptoms, normal life can proceed,” the organisation said in a statement. Aid organisations also warned that many health care volunteers wouldn’t go to Ebola hot zones if they knew they would be confined to their homes for three weeks after they got back.

Published in Dawn, October 26th, 2014