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U.S. to quarantine Ebola-exposed returning missionaries

Posted August. 12, 2014 01:36,   

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Global community is strengthening the emergency quarantine to curb the Ebola virus.

North Carolina state government in the U.S. announced on Sunday special quarantine procedures to prevent spread of the Ebola virus. "SIM USA," a Christian aid group headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, said some of its relief workers would return to North Carolina from Liberia. Liberia is one of the western African countries where Ebola outbreak occurred. The returning staffs are known to be colleagues of Nancy Writebol, an American female missionary who is infected with Ebola and now under treatment. SIM USA did not reveal the numbers or names of the returning missionaries.

“The returning missionaries will be confined for 21 days based on the longest duration of Ebola incubation,” said Stephen R. Keener, medical director of Mecklenburg County Health Department in Charlotte.

The government of Nigeria, where two people were dead by Ebola infection, banned transport of corpses to prevent further Ebola infections. Funeral custom of touching the dead body in some African regions is recognized as the main cause of the Ebola virus spread. The news agency DPA reported that the Nigerian government on Sunday prohibited transport of dead bodies across the boundaries of the nation and states to prevent spread of the Ebola virus.

Meanwhile, the news from Hong Kong on a Nigerian suspected to be carrying the Ebola virus shocked the entire Asian region but the person has tested negative. Hong Kong’s health authority said Sunday that the Nigerian man had tested negative for the Ebola virus upon preliminary laboratory testing.