"Firestone Did What Governments Have Not: Stopped Ebola In Its Tracks"

[JDPriestly]

12. No quarantine? Did you read the article?

Firestone immediately quarantined the woman's family. Like so many Ebola patients, she died soon after being admitted to the ward. But no one else at Firestone got infected: not her family and not the workers who transported, treated and cared for her.

. . . .

Firestone didn't see another Ebola case for four months. Then in August, as the epidemic raced through the nearby capital, patients with Ebola started appearing at the one hospital and several clinics across the giant rubber plantation. The hospital isolation ward was expanded to 23 beds and a prefab annex was built. Containing Ebola became the number-one priority of the company. Schools in the town, which have been closed by government decree, were transformed into quarantine centers. Teachers were dispatched for door-to-door outreach.

Hundreds of people with possible exposure to the virus were placed under quarantine. Seventy-two cases were reported. Forty-eight were treated in the hospital and 18 survived. By mid-September the company's Ebola treatment unit was nearly full.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2014/10/06/354054915/firestone-did-what-governments-have-not-stopped-ebola-in-its-tracks

Quarantine if properly enforced is a classic means of slowing what could become an epidemic. It is not a punitive measure. Often people stay quarantined in their homes. They are not imprisoned.

I was placed under quarantine as a small child because I had scarlet fever. I'm not sure that people on DU understand what a quarantine is. It is merely a precautionary measure to limit the possibility that a person infected with a contagious disease who is not yet ill or showing symptoms does not transmit the disease to someone who has not yet been in contact with the disease.

Although ebola is not airborne, a quarantine makes sense. Of course, in addition to the quarantine, adequate medical facilities are needed, and that was also made available at the Firestone plantation.

In my case, I ended up in a hospital, but other family members were quarantined. Since penicillin and other antibiotics cure so many communicable disease, we don't hear much about quarantines. But they are a good idea in fighting dangerous, communicable diseases.