Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
With Hantavirus Threat Behind Them, US Passengers Return To Daily Life
Quarantine ended on Sunday for American passengers of a cruise ship that was hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak. The passengers had been held for weeks at a federal facility in Nebraska. The quarantine was lifted at 2 p.m. Central time, officials said. It marked a return to day-to-day life for all 18 passengers, including the six who had stayed at the National Quarantine Unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center until the end of the 42-day period. Since the end of May, 12 had been released from the unit to home confinement. (Spoto, 6/21)
The moment ends a painful chapter of isolation and uncertainty for those exposed, who say they are looking forward to hugging parents, getting haircuts and touching grass. (Bendix, 6/21)
The latest on the Ebola outbreak 鈥
Ebola cases have surpassed 1,000 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where health workers are becoming infected before anyone realizes they鈥檙e treating the deadly virus, exposing a dangerous weakness in efforts to contain one of the world鈥檚 fastest-growing outbreaks. (Gale, 6/22)
Mourners gathered Friday to bury a 6-month-old girl who died from Ebola earlier this week, the third child to die at an orphanage in eastern Congo as authorities have struggled to contain the latest outbreak. Carrying a cross, people stood at a distance as the small coffin was lowered into the ground by masked and gloved health workers, and a Catholic priest prayed over her body. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a feeling of sadness because we have lost one of our own, a daughter of the church,鈥 said Father Innocent Ndogo. (Kabumba and McMakin, 6/20)
Faced with a combative crowd demanding to see the body about to be buried in the trading hub of Bunia, the Red Cross team proposed a compromise borne from past Ebola outbreaks: They offered to open the coffin as long as onlookers brought protection to avoid infection. The rejection was swift. The crowd in this war-torn part of eastern Congo assaulted the volunteers, seriously injuring two of them, and opened the coffin, unwittingly exposing themselves to the virus at its most contagious. (Furlong, 6/20)
