RTR4CAGI.jpg (Photo : Reuters)
China's medical staff who treat Ebola patients in West Africa will be quarantined for 21 days, according to a senior health official on Monday.
He Qinghua, deputy director of the Bureau for Disease Control and Prevention, said that the doctors will be made to undergo a series of tests before entering observation period, according to Yahoo News.
China has sent the 30-member medical staff to West Africa and is looking to send hundreds more in the near future. Chinese military personnel have also been dispatched to help build treatment facilities in the affected countries.
"As these doctors are responsible for the testing of the virus, on their return to China they will be put under a 21-day quarantine period to be supervised by local community services centers," the official said during a press briefing.
Anyone of them who shows symptoms of the virus would be taken to a designated hospital right away, He added.
The official, however, did not specify whether members of the medical staff who have developed symptoms would be required to stay in isolation or allowed to be quarantined at home.
The U.S. has imposed the same measure with the troops it sent to West Africa, while Australia has resolved to block off citizens from the three worst-hit countries.
Meanwhile, controversy was ignited regarding the mandatory quarantine implemented by the U.S. when an American nurse who had treated Ebola patients in Sierra Leone fought to leave her home.
Nearly 5,000 people have been killed by Ebola in this latest outbreak, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). While it has already documented more than 13,000 cases, the WHO admitted that the actual number of deaths and infections could be much higher.
