Quinn orders 21-day quarantine for Ebola patient contacts

Health alerts regarding people who may have traveled to particular West African countries are posted in the lobby of Bellevue Hospital in New York. Illinois is following New York's and New Jersey's lead in implementing 21-day quarantines of anybody who's been in contact with Ebola patients while in any of three African countries. Associated Press

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn announced Friday that he has ordered the Illinois Department of Public Health to require a mandatory 21-day home quarantine for "high-risk" individuals who have had direct contact with anyone infected with the Ebola virus while in Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea.

The directive was issued to every local health department in Illinois.

According to a news release issued by the governor's office, the mandatory quarantine order includes any high-risk medical personnel who have performed medical services to individuals infected with the Ebola virus.

The order will be implemented by local health departments across the state. Previously such medical personnel were subject to a voluntary quarantine.

"This protective measure is too important to be voluntary," Quinn said. "We must take every step necessary to ensure the people of Illinois are protected from potential exposure to the Ebola virus. While we have no confirmed cases of the Ebola virus in Illinois, we will continue to take every safeguard necessary to protect first responders, health care workers and the people of Illinois."

The statement arrived a day after it was announced that Ebola was ruled out in the case of a child who vomited on a flight originating from Liberia and traveling to Chicago O'Hare International Airport.

The move also comes after the governors of New Jersey and New York on Friday ordered a similar if not the same mandatory, 21-day quarantine of all medical workers and other arriving airline passengers who have had contact with victims of the deadly disease in West Africa.

The Illinois Department of Public Health received approval earlier this week from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to perform testing for Ebola. All testing must first be approved by the state department and then the CDC. A second sample would then be sent to the CDC to confirm state lab results.

On Wednesday, Quinn announced a statewide Ebola Task Force established through Executive Order that includes members representing health care, local public health, emergency responders and the Illinois State Board of Health.

"We have learned that the best way to address the Ebola virus is to educate ourselves and know the facts," Quinn said. "I have directed IDPH to assemble a task force of experts that can lead a coordinated effort to ensure everyone in Illinois receives timely and accurate information regarding any potential threat."

Last week the state health department launched an informational hotline where residents can call 1-800-889-3931 with questions or concerns regarding the Ebola virus.

The moves by the governors of New York and New Jersey came after a physician who returned to New York City a week ago from treating Ebola patients in Guinea fell ill with the virus. Many New Yorkers were dismayed to learn that in the days after he came home, Dr. Craig Spencer rode the subway, took a cab, went bowling, visited a coffee shop and ate at a restaurant in the city of 8 million.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the case led them to conclude that the two states need precautions more rigorous than those of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which recommends monitoring of exposed people for 21 days but doesn't require quarantine, in which they are kept away from others.

"It's too serious a situation to leave it to the honor system of compliance," Cuomo said.

Those in the two states who are forcibly quarantined will be confined either to their homes or, if they live in other states, to some other place, most likely a medical facility, the governors said. Those quarantined at home will receive house calls from health officials. Twenty-one days is the incubation period for the Ebola virus.

Dr. Howard Zucker, acting New York state health commissioner, said any medical personnel who have treated Ebola patients in the three Ebola-ravaged West African countries -- Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia -- will be automatically quarantined.

Cuomo said anyone arriving from the three countries will be questioned at the airport about their contact with Ebola sufferers.

The governors gave no estimate of how many travelers would be subject to quarantine, but Cuomo said "we're not talking about a tremendous volume of people coming in from these areas," and added that there are no plans to hire more screeners at airports.

The two states are home to Kennedy Airport and Newark Liberty in New Jersey, both major international portals.

Officials said they would track flight connections and screen passengers upon disembarking. However, they offered few details on how the quarantine would be enforced and what the consequences would be for people who violated the restrictions by going out in public.

A spokesman for New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city's Department of Health was not consulted before the quarantine order came down, but he said de Blasio and Cuomo have since spoken.

The de Blasio administration expressed some concern with the policy change.

"The mayor wants to work closely with our state partners, but he wants to make sure that there will not be any sort of chilling effect on medical workers who might want to go over to help," spokesman Phil Walzak said.

The White House did not have an immediate reaction to Cuomo and Christie's directives. Officials said Friday the administration was regularly reviewing its policies but indicated they were satisfied with the measures it has put in place, including steps that call on recent arrivals from West Africa to monitor their health and notify state and local authorities of their presence in their communities.

An administration official said federal officials have been considering similar quarantine requirements for some time. But the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss deliberations by name, said the Obama administration was not yet ready to take that step at the federal level.

The measures were discussed as recently as Friday morning but are still under review.

White House officials have said states are entitled to impose additional requirements beyond those set by the CDC.

The CDC said it sets baseline recommended standards, "but state and local officials have the prerogative to tighten the regimen as they see fit."

The agency also said, "When it comes to the federal standards set by the CDC, we will consider any measures that we believe have the potential to make the American people safer."

Spencer, a 33-year-old emergency room doctor, returned to the U.S. on Oct. 17 and sought treatment Thursday after suffering diarrhea and a 100.3-degree fever. He was listed in stable condition at a special isolation unit at Bellevue Hospital Center, and a decontamination company was sent to his Harlem home. His fiancee, who was not showing symptoms, was being watched in a quarantine ward at Bellevue.

Spencer's illness led lawmakers on Capitol Hill, scientists and ordinary New Yorkers to wonder why he was out on the town after his return -- and why stronger steps weren't being taken to quarantine medical workers.

Health officials said he followed U.S. and international guidelines in checking his temperature every day and watching for symptoms, and that he put no one at risk. But others said he should have been quarantined, either voluntarily or by the government, during the incubation period.

An automatic three-week quarantine makes sense for anyone "with a clear exposure" to Ebola, said Dr. Richard Wenzel, a Virginia Commonwealth University scientist who formerly led the International Society for Infectious Diseases.

Aid organizations such as Doctors Without Borders, the group Spencer was working for, have argued that mandatory quarantines are unnecessary because people with Ebola aren't contagious until symptoms begin, and even then it requires close contact with body fluids.

Also, aid groups have warned that many health care volunteers wouldn't go to Ebola hot zones if they knew they would be confined to their homes for three weeks after they got back.

"A three-week complete quarantine would eliminate two-thirds to three-quarters of the volunteers from the U.S." going to West Africa, said Dr. Rick Sacra, a Massachusetts physician who was recently infected in Liberia but recovered. "They wouldn't be able to spare the time."

The World Health Organization is not recommending the quarantine of returning aid workers without symptoms, spokeswoman Sona Bari said.

"Health care workers are generally self-monitoring and are aware of the need to report any symptoms, as this patient did," she wrote in an email.

• The Associated Press contributed to this report.