Travel to and from West Africa has become increasingly burdensome for researchers and health workers helping to curb the spread of an Ebola outbreak that has killed nearly 5,000 people in the past year. In October, US universities began banning campus-sponsored travel to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea and began strongly discouraging travel to these countries for personal reasons, including volunteer work. As of 29 October, the guidelines set by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advise health officials to monitor the condition of those arriving from Ebola-affected countries for 21 days—the maximum incubation period for the disease. But some institutions are also asking these individuals to stay away from campus during that time, regardless of their exposure to the virus. Although these policies are designed to prevent the spread of Ebola, they may also be hampering the response to the outbreak in West Africa.
“Universities in a time of crisis have historically been able to step up and provide not just research and other resources like that, but really personnel and expertise,” says Phuoc Le, a physician at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) who was headed to Liberia on 6 November to work with a nonprofit called Last Mile Health. Whereas UCSF is encouraging doctors and nurses to go to West Africa, Le adds, others are “putting up multiple barriers that are hard for individual faculty or staff to overcome.”
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