The Vermont Department of Health is monitoring two people who recently returned from Ebola-stricken West Africa, officials said Thursday.
State health officials work with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to track people returning from West African countries impacted by the Ebola outbreak, which has claimed more than 5,400 lives this year.
Italia signed a form submitting to a 21-day quarantine, but now says he believed he had no other option at the time and that his rights may have been violated.
Neither person currently being monitored for the Ebola virus is a health care worker, but unlike Italia, neither was asked to enter quarantine.
“It really is case-by-case,” said Tracy Dolan, acting health commissioner, on how the department is approaching West African travelers who enter Vermont.
In Italia’s case, health officials chose to exercise caution beyond what’s recommended by the CDC because Italia was in Africa for an extended period, he was not wearing protective gear, he told people he was a medical doctor, and he was not working with an organization that could have given him information about the location of Ebola-infected patients and how to avoid it, Dolan has said.
The suspicion of several state and municipal officials that Italia is mentally unstable was not part of the decision to push for quarantine, Dolan has said.
Officials declined to provide any detail on what the two people being monitored were doing in West Africa, or how their travels differed from Italia’s, saying that doing so could identify them.
The state held a news conference and provided greater detail on Italia’s situation because he had posted on Facebook about his travels, and officials wanted to avoid panic or misinformation in that case, Dolan said Thursday.
Current CDC guidelines call for “active monitoring” of people considered a low or moderate risk for contracting Ebola — the risk-level CDC screeners assigned to Italia upon his return.
Active monitoring involves a daily, in-person screening with a health department nurse, and a phone call for the person to self-report their body temperature or any symptoms. There are no restrictions on the person’s movements.
The Ebola virus cannot be spread by someone who is not displaying symptoms. If symptoms do not develop within the 21-day incubation period, then the person has not contracted the virus, CDC says.
The Health Department is working closely with health care providers to make sure hospitals and first responders are asking patients the proper screening questions, said Chris Bell, director of emergency medical services for the department.
The state is also working with medical officials to ensure their readiness to receive a patient with Ebola, Bell said. Vermont hospitals are well prepared to receive someone with the virus, department officials have said.
Vermont was recently able to purchase better protective gear for EMS workers with $250,000 in federal preparedness assistance, he said.
The likelihood of an Ebola case in Vermont is still low, officials said, noting that there is currently no person in the U.S. being treated for the virus.
A surgeon who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone who was treated at an Omaha, Nebraska, hospital died from the virus on Nov. 17. His death is the second on U.S. soil during the current outbreak.
