Ebola outbreak: Top American diplomat promises USA is in the fight 'for the long haul'

Samantha Power, the US ambassador to the UN, pledges more assistance

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, right meets with Ebola survivors in Conakry, Guinea (Reuters)

The top American official at the United Nations, ambassador Samantha Power, said during a visit to Guinea today that the US was committed over “the long haul” to doing what it can to help those countries in West Africa that have been afflicted by major outbreaks of Ebola to contain and conquer it.

The Pentagon has meanwhile revealed that a dozen US Army soldiers who were part of an initial deployment to help Liberia set up the necessary infrastructure to fight the disease were being monitored upon return to an air base in Italy for possible signs of the disease. Among those being watched is Major General Darryl Williams, who has overseen the US effort there. Dozens more will be similarly monitored as they rotate back to Italy, officials said.

Questions over appropriate quarantine arrangements for health workers and other travellers returning from the region to the United States continued to stir domestic political frictions, after New York and New Jersey were admonished by the White House for declaring at the end of last week that anyone who may have had exposure to Ebola in West Africa would be placed in enforced isolation for 21 days, the incubation period for the disease.

A spokesman said that the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon was clear that healthcare workers returning from West Africa “should not be subjected to restrictions that are not based on science”. The comment reflected a concern at UN headquarters that politics is starting to get in the way of sensible responses to the crisis, including in the United States. He added that the UN would comply with any health polices the US or its states choose to impose

The measures, announced jointly by governors Andrew Cuomo and Chris Christie of New York and New Jersey respectively, reflected public fear of a wider outbreak of the disease in the US, which heightened tonight when officials said a five-year-old boy recently returned from Guinea and living in the Bronx area of New York City had been rushed to a Manhattan hospital with symptoms consistent with Ebola, though the condition was not confirmed.

At the start of her tour of all three West African nations most affected by the Ebola crisis, Ms Powers told an audience in Guinea that the US is “in this with you for the long haul”. Ms Power also said that the effort to control the disease in those countries would be impeded unless people “overcome the fear and the stigma that are associated” with it and seek medical help as soon as they think they show possible symptoms.

In its latest update of the spread of the disease in West Africa, the World Health Organisation has said that 10,000 people are now thought to have caught the disease and nearly half of them have died.

The New Jersey isolation policy came under particular scrutiny after an American nurse returning from working in the field in Sierra Leone complained publicly of being detained at Newark Airport and then placed in an unheated tent at a nearby hospital even though she was showing no symptoms of the disease. She spoke of outright hostility towards her after she landed and a degree of chaos with no one apparently sure of how to deal with her.

The treatment of the nurse, Kaci Hickox, who is from Maine, drew criticism particularly because of concern that her story would discourage other healthcare workers traveling to West Africa to help with the disease if they are guaranteed a 21-day lost period upon their return home. Yet the help of outsiders is urgently needed if the outbreak is to be brought under control. She has threated a lawsuit against the authorities saying her rights had been violated.

Mr Christie said that Ms Hickox would after all be allowed to travel to Maine, on condition she remained in quarantine in her home upon arrival there. Mr Cuomo also moved to moderate the rules that had been put in place by New York.