Canada and Australia following North Korea’s lead on Ebola

mentalfloss

mentalfloss

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Why are Australia and Canada following North Korea’s lead on Ebola?

Despite international bodies such as the World Health Organization declaring it a shortsighted and ultimately damaging tactic, the number of countries that are placing restrictions on travel due to Ebola has been rising.

Although precise numbers are a little hard to ascertain (countries are not always forthcoming with their policies), by WorldView's count there appear to be almost 30 countries imposing blanket or near-blanket bans on entry for residents from Ebola's West African epicenter: Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. Many of these countries are also banning entry for their own citizens who have visited the epicenter recently.

Below is a list of those countries, in alphabetical order. As you read through it, think to yourself: Which countries stand out?

Antigua and Barbuda
Australia
Belize
Cameroon
Canada
Cape Verde
Chad
Colombia
Equatorial Guinea
Gambia
Guyana
Haiti
Jamaica
Kenya
Mauritius
Namibia
North Korea
Panama
Rwanda
Seychelles
South Africa
South Sudan
St Kitts and Nevis
St Lucia
St Maarten
St Vincent and the Grenadines
Suriname
The Dominican Republic
Trinidad and Tobago
(For more information on the specifics of these cases, check International SOS, a health advisory group that monitors Ebola-related travel restrictions.)

First off, there are plenty of African nations here. Perhaps that's understandable. Some of these countries are quite close to the West African Ebola-hit nations, and many have fragile health infrastructures that would struggle if there was an outbreak. In addition, a fair amount of these countries have autocratic or semi-autocratic rulers willing to ignore the advice of the international health community.

Then, there's an unusually high number of Caribbean island nations. These small nations, again often with fragile health systems, seem especially concerned about a potential Ebola outbreak and how it might affect their important tourism industries. For example, St Lucia's prime minister, Kenny Anthony, has justified the decision, explaining that his country does not have the ability "to manage any crisis that lands on our doorstep, any crisis of that kind."

The Latin American nations Belize, Columbia, Guyana, Panama and Suriname appear likely to have been influenced by their Caribbean neighbors. North Korea, of course, makes an appearance, with by far the most restrictive border policy on Ebola. Perhaps there's some logic there, but who really knows. It's North Korea after all.

So who's left? Australia and Canada. Two wealthy democracies with health-care systems ranked among the best in the world.


What is it that has made these two wealthy Western nations ignore the advice of experts and the actions of peers? Isn't Canada supposed to be more sensible than the United States, where the more reasonable tactic of screening has been implemented nationwide (some local problems notwithstanding)? The WHO seems stumped and has begun demanding answers. "These are measures that go beyond the recommendations of the WHO's emergency committee," Isabelle Nuttall of WHO's alert and response department told Agence France-Presse.

For many Canadians and Australians, their country's position on this list is an embarrassment. "Banning refugees from West Africa is like shuttering up the windows of a house while it burns to the ground," Sarah Hanson-Young, an Australian lawmaker from the Greens Party, told Reuters. "Canada has the resources and know-how to be a leader in the fight against Ebola," the Globe and Mail wrote in an editorial. "Instead, we are on a very short list of leading nations that have moved to back of the pack by badly overreacting."

So far there has been no signs of a reversal, though Tony Abbott's government did recently relent to international pressure to send Australian volunteers to fight Ebola. It begs a worrying question: Will more Western nations ignore the advice of the international health-care community and follow the lead of North Korea?

Why are Australia and Canada following North Korea’s lead on Ebola? - The Washington Post
 
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WHO asks Canada to justify Ebola visa ban

TORONTO -- The World Health Organization has asked Canada to justify its decision to limit travel to this country from the West African countries combating Ebola.

The federal government announced Friday it would not issue new travel visas for residents or citizens of countries with widespread and persistent Ebola transmission. As well, it has put a halt on the processing of permanent residency visas for people from those countries.

Canada's move contravenes the International Health Regulations which stipulate that in infectious disease outbreaks, countries should not impose trade or travel sanctions against affected countries beyond what the WHO has recommended.

Under that treaty, countries which take measures that are stronger than those approved by the WHO must present the global health agency with the scientific and public health rationale for their actions.

The WHO has repeatedly urged countries not to close their doors to people from Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, saying to do so would be counterproductive and might actually increase the risk of international spread of the disease.

"Any strong measures (like border closures) need to be well documented and explained to those who are suffering from those measures," the WHO's Dr. Isabelle Nuttall said Tuesday in an interview.

"And if not, they will just be circumvented. People will find a way to travel. And the consequence to a country might be even worse than not having had a travel ban."

As well, she said, countries that have banned travel from affected nations may let down their guard. "What is important is to maintain the level of vigilance. What we wouldn't want is that Canada feels that because of that, there is a false sense of security."

Canada is a signatory to the International Health Regulations -- often called the IHR. Nuttall is the head of the WHO's department of global capacities alert and response, which is responsible for overseeing the implementation of the health security treaty.

Nuttall said the WHO has asked Canada's IHR focal point -- the person within the Public Health Agency of Canada tasked with communicating with the WHO on IHR-related issues -- for an explanation. She wasn't clear when the request was sent but said the WHO has yet to receive a reply.

The Public Health Agency of Canada said via email Tuesday night that as required, it had notified the WHO of its intention to limit access to Canada for people from affected countries. The email also said Canada would present the WHO with the requested rational "in the near future."

Meanwhile, Kevin Menard, a spokesperson for Citizenship and Immigration and Minister Chris Alexander, said in an email that some exceptions to the new rules may be permitted.

"Should essential travel be required, it will be seriously considered. Discretion still remains to grant entry where travel is essential and in Canada's interest," Menard wrote. He did not say what would qualify as essential travel.

The treaty, which uses moral suasion rather than sanctions, is designed to increase global health security by removing disincentives for countries to report disease outbreaks that might threaten other nations if they go unchecked.

While the WHO will engage in discussion with Canada in the hopes the government will change its position, the treaty contains no sanctions for countries that contravene it. The document was drafted by countries, not the WHO, Nuttall said.

In the past countries have on occasion been loath to admit they have outbreaks of some diseases because other nations have responded by swiftly issuing travel bans and-or trade sanctions.

China took several months to admit it was in the grips of an outbreak of a deadly new disease in 2003, in the process unleashing that disease -- SARS -- on the world. An estimated 8,422 people in a number of different countries contracted SARS and the disease claimed 916 lives -- 44 of them in Canada.

In fact, Canada helped to revise and update the IHR in the wake of the 2003 outbreak. It had an incentive; Canada had been hurt economically because it had the misfortune of having the largest SARS outbreak outside of Asia.

During SARS the WHO used "travel advisories" -- warnings that people should postpone travel to SARS-affected countries or cities. Toronto, which was briefly under a travel advisory, saw hotels empty, conferences cancel and movie shoots relocate. The outbreak is estimated to have cost the city's tourism industry $2 billion and led to an estimated 28,000 layoffs.

Preben Aavitsland, Norway's former state epidemiologist and one of the drafters of the International Health Regulations, explains the purpose of the treaty this way:

"IHR offers a fair deal to any country: Tell us everything about your bad outbreaks and we will assist you and make sure you are not victims of unnecessary restrictions," he said via an email.

"Well, now Canada has broken its part of the deal."

Under the IHR, when a public health emergency of international concern is declared -- Ebola was named one on Aug. 8 -- the WHO can issue temporary recommendations aimed at helping contain the outbreak.

The WHO's director general takes advice on whether to declare a public health emergency and what recommendations to make related to it from a team of experts appointed for that purpose. The group is called an emergency committee.

The Ebola emergency committee recommended against restricting travel from the Ebola-affected countries and has repeated that advice twice more since its original meeting. WHO Director General Margaret Chan has accepted that advice.

"We do not believe in the current circumstances travel bans can be efficient. And we don't believe that the stopping of transmission of Ebola will be achieved by imposing a travel ban," Nuttall explained.

Still, a number of countries have taken a range of actions that go beyond the WHO's recommendations. Nuttall said to date 31 have levied some limitations on travellers from the affected countries.

The WHO and the United Nations have frequently complained these travel restrictions are impeding the world's ability to respond to the outbreak by making it hard to get international health workers and needed equipment to the affected countries.

But Canada and Australia -- which closed its borders to residents of the affected countries before Canada -- are among the biggest names to take these steps. Other countries to impose travel restrictions include Rwanda, Cape Verde and Antigua and Barbuda.

Aavitsland said Canada and Australia are setting a bad example.

"This travel ban is far more than what is necessary to protect Canadians. What is needed is not abundance of caution, but the proper level of caution," he wrote.

Some observers have noted that in 2003, Canada railed against travel restrictions. A delegation from the Ontario government -- headed by then health minister Tony Clement, who is now an influential member of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's cabinet -- travelled to Geneva to demand the WHO rescind Toronto's travel advisory.

Nuttall remembers vividly how annoyed Canadian officials were when the travel advisory was issued.

"I had the 'privilege' to be live on TV that day to announce the measures," she recalls.

"And I can tell you that I had a very angry, very angry person in front of me and that I had to explain the WHO decision based on the scientific evidence that was presented by WHO at that time and why the decision was taken.

"Now it is important to note that the (revised) IHR were really developed for that not to happen any more."

Over the weekend, Clement -- now chairman of the treasury board -- defended the government's visa decision on Twitter, saying the move to close borders to people from Ebola-affected countries was different from the SARS travel advisory.

"We are a sovereign nation with a duty to protect our citizens," he tweeted.

WHO warns Canada against 'false sense of security' limiting travellers from Ebola-affected countries | CTV News
 
IdRatherBeSkiing

IdRatherBeSkiing

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I am quite frankly surprised WHO is being so lax on this. Sounds like they are just a bunch of bureucrats. In any case, we do not answer to them.
 
Nuggler

Nuggler

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close the doors, windows, airports, and etc.

If you're in Africa, stay there.

You want to help, good, stay there till it's all clear

If you go to Africa, you're there for the duration.

Stupid people !

But, damn, if in Africa, I couldn't visit N. Korea.:-(; number 7,349 on my bucket list.

Life ain't fair .8O

mentalfloss said:
WHO cares
Click to expand...

No, they probably don't.

:lol:nice catch.
 
mentalfloss

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U.S.’s quarantine-fighting nurse rips Canada’s Ebola policy

She took on American politicians. Now a nurse who castigated what she considered ignorant and electoralist Ebola policies in her own country has a few words for the Government of Canada.

Kaci Hickox had television crews parked outside the house last month as she defied quarantine orders, issued by certain state governors in the heat of U.S. election campaigns.

The woman who became known in news headlines as “The Ebola Nurse” is now free to move around, after clearing the 21-day virus-free period. She was interviewed this week as she packed a trailer for her move across the state of Maine, to Freeport.

And, yes, she’d heard about Canada’s clampdown on travel from parts of West Africa. The federal government has imposed far more aggressive rules than most countries, banning visas from Ebola-affected Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

“I had this terrible gut reaction,” Hickox said in an interview.

“Discriminating against these entire countries, and groups of people that really need our help more than ever and need our support and our compassion more than ever, is quite shameful, actually.”

Hickox’s return from Sierra Leone made her a cause celebre to some Americans, and a bete noir to others. The debate closely followed political lines, as her case landed in the middle of midterm elections.

Big majorities have told pollsters that they want severe travel restrictions, similar to the measures imposed in Canada. But the U.S. government has resisted, saying those measures would be more harmful than helpful.

Some state governors have taken measures into their own hands. In New Jersey, that’s what got Hickox quarantined in a tent after she landed at the airport, thus setting off a public dispute between her and the Republican governors in two states — that state’s Chris Christie, and then Maine’s after she was sent home to complete her quarantine there.

Hickox was between jobs after completing a fellowship at the Centers for Disease Control. She decided to volunteer for a month in Sierra Leone, with Doctors Without Borders.

She counted 39 Ebola patients who walked out of her clinic, healed, during her time there. As for those who didn’t make it out, Hickox says she didn’t keep a list because it was too painful. The last one was a 10-year-old girl who suffered seizures, then died alone.

Hickox says she’d go back — despite what happened upon her return. Amid the kind letters she’s received, there have been some hateful ones.

One letter-writer said he hoped she’d get Ebola and die. Hickox blamed politicians for fanning fear.

“It’s just incredibly disappointing to be doing the work you love — and then to come back and because politicians want to gain some votes, they make this into a re-election campaign (issue) instead of what it should be: which is a real public-health debate,” she said.

“We should be listening to public-health leaders. This should not be a political game. There was no reason for me to be put in a tent in New Jersey. There was no reason for me to be kept there for four days, except that Governor Christie was making a point. And that’s really scary, I think.”

Another American back from a volunteer stint in Africa chose, unlike Hanson, to willingly place herself in quarantine. Jessi Hanson said she was lucky to have a supportive employer, who let her work from home through the 21-day period.

But she was equally scathing, perhaps more so, toward the Canadian policy.

She characterized it as racist, saying Canada would never have considered banning visas from Europe, even though there were tens of thousands of measles cases and dozens of deaths a few years back.

“Shocked and appalled,” Hanson said of the reaction she’s heard from friends in the U.S., to Canada’s Oct. 31 announcement. “As an American, we always look to Canada as being more open and more accepting and having better international relations.

“(But) you’re limiting people based on the colour of their skin.... It becomes a racial issue, at that point. I think that because it’s an impoverished African country, it was a lot easier to put that ban than it would have been to ban someone from England, France or America.”

The Canadian government points out that its policy allows for some exceptions on a case-by-case basis, and because it doesn’t apply to people with Canadian passports it wouldn’t affect health workers heading to Africa. A number of poorer countries also have travel restrictions on the Ebola-affected areas.

Among the wealthiest nations, however, Canada and Australia are international outliers and their policy has drawn criticism from the World Health Organization.

Considering that nary one-10th of one per cent of Liberians are believed to have Ebola, and there’s virtually no chance of transmission from someone who isn’t obviously sick, Hanson called it an over-reaction with dangerous consequences.

It not only sends a signal to the rest of the world that these countries should be cut off, their economies further damaged, and their travel ability restricted, she said. It also risks a serious unintended consequence, she added: that of scaring other African countries to cover up evidence of Ebola on their soil, which would make it harder to track the disease.

“What does it say — how do we value that country and those people? I don’t think Canada would have imposed such a ban on the United States, or on England, or on Belgium, and they’ve had outbreaks.”

Hanson had challenges in her own country, upon returning to the U.S.

She’d just used her vacation time to spend a month volunteering in Liberia. She was working to set up an organization, Playing to Live, which provided therapy for children in interim-care centres, using art and education.

She worked with one survivor who had lost 27 family members and was given eight children to raise, as she was no longer contagious. She was 17 years old.

Hanson saw people dying, including a six-month-old baby.

But she also saw people get better — including one girl nicknamed “Mercy.” Within a few hours, the nine-year-old had lost her mom and been kicked out of her community, for fear she might be contagious. She arrived traumatized, with a blank expression. Hanson said she gradually made friends, and started to play again.

Survivors are often shunned, out of fear: “I met a survivor who said, ‘I don’t know why I bothered surviving — I’ve lost my friends, my family, my home. I went home and nobody would touch me, everyone thinks I’m a disease, no one will touch my children, I can’t get a job and I was evicted.“’

Hanson would hug them to prove they were safe to touch.

But when she got back home authorities in the U.S. didn’t quite know what to do with her. Hanson spent hours in limbo at the airport in Washington, D.C. One man in a military uniform ordered her to wear a mask. Later, a health worker told her to take it off, because Ebola isn’t an airborne disease.

After hours of this, she started to worry. She cried a little, and called her mom.

Finally, six hours later, authorities decided she was safe enough to send home in a group vehicle. Hanson then spent the next few weeks working from home, after getting permission from her supervisors.

She now fears that some people might be discouraged from going to fight the disease in West Africa. She says there’s a risk people might be dissuaded by the idea of quarantine and missing work.

“There is. Because some of the people who are going to work there are doing it voluntarily,” she said. “I was very lucky that I had a supportive work environment.”

U.S.’s quarantine-fighting nurse rips Canada’s Ebola policy - The Globe and Mail
 
captain morgan

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mentalfloss

mentalfloss

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Of course you're not interested in what she has to say.

It doesn't comply with your talking points.
 
captain morgan

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mentalfloss said:
Of course you're not interested in what she has to say.

It doesn't comply with your talking points.
Click to expand...

She is a healthcare pro, not a professional in infectious disease... What she did was hugely irresponsible and potentially dangerous.

If she wants to risk her own life, that's her decision, but she is potentially putting at risk many people that come in contact with her

Tecumsehsbones said:
Did anybody around her get ebola?
Click to expand...

Neither you or I know.

Curious though, what would possibly be the reaction or justification if someone does?
 
mentalfloss

mentalfloss

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Whatever O'Reilly.

You can disagree with her quarantine decision, but she is bang on about this ridiculous travel ban we put into effect.
 
Tecumsehsbones

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captain morgan said:
She is a healthcare pro, not a professional in infectious disease... What she did was hugely irresponsible and potentially dangerous.

If she wants to risk her own life, that's her decision, but she is potentially putting at risk many people that come in contact with her



Neither you or I know.

Curious though, what would possibly be the reaction or justification if someone does?
Click to expand...
Acksherly, I do know. Nobody did. Hence, there was no risk, ergo she was not putting anybody at risk.

The quarantine was not medically indicated. It was about as scientific as killing Jews to stop the Plague.
 
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