Ebola quarantine was a headache for US officials

When US federal health officials ordered 179 Dallas-area residents under "public health surveillance" for Ebola last autumn, it became a major task to meet their personal needs over the 21 days they spent in isolation.

A new federal report describes the effort undertaken to satisfy their basic needs to stop the spread of Ebola. The report was intended to help other communities prepare for such outbreaks.

Dallas' Ebola outbreak began on September 30, when a Liberian traveller was diagnosed with the disease and two of his caretakers subsequently became infected. Immediately, the government sought to identify the people who had contact with those who were infected and put them in isolation.

"Meeting the needs of the contacts of the Ebola patients was essential to successful contact tracing, which is critical to interrupting transmission," said the "Morbidity and mortality report" from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

But forcing people to stay home for three weeks had the potential for creating problems. As events unfolded in Dallas, the government had to deal with housing, transportation, education, employment, food and other household issues.

The stay-at-home orders involved 149 health-care workers who had contact with the three Ebola patients, 20 people who had "community contact" with Thomas Duncan, the initial Ebola patient, and 10 others who were exposed to the ambulance that took Duncan to the hospital.