Canada pulling three scientists from Ebola zone

Several people at team’s hotel infected with virus

TORONTO — Canada will bring three scientists working in West Africa’s Ebola zone home by private charter, the Public Health Agency of Canada suggested Wednesday as it issued a short update on the evacuation of the team from Kailahun, Sierra Leone.

The agency reiterated that the Canadians were being brought back to Canada early after it was discovered several people at the hotel where they were staying were infected with Ebola.

Earlier Wednesday the U.S. Centers for Disease Control revealed it had flown two CDC scientists back to Atlanta from Kailahun in response to the same incident.

The Public Health Agency had initially spoken of three infections there and while Wednesday’s statement did not repeat that number, sources say that there are indeed reports of three sick people at the hotel.

The Public Health Agency would not grant interviews about the situation. Instead it released a six-paragraph statement late in the day saying the Canadians are in good health and believed to be at low risk of infection.

“As an added precaution, the employees will not be travelling on a commercial flight to Canada, will be monitored closely on their journey home and after they return to Canada, and will be in voluntary isolation,’’ the statement said.

The Public Health Agency said for privacy purposes it won’t release the names of the scientists or reveal when they are returning to Canada or their destination in Canada.

It said Canada remains committed to helping in the outbreak response and will send another lab team to Sierra Leone “once appropriate steps have been taken to ensure a safe living environment.’’

The WHO announced Tuesday it was temporarily removing its staff at Kailahun, after a Senegalese epidemiologist working as part of the WHO team contracted Ebola. He was deployed with the WHO through its Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network — known as GOARN. On Wednesday, the man was medevaced to Hamburg, Germany, for care.

Three WHO staff were sent to Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, for rest and observation. But the U.S. Centers for Disease Control flew two people it had working at Kailahun back to the United States after one was confirmed to have had what is considered lowrisk contact with a person who contracted Ebola.

The CDC did not identify the responder who had become infected at Kailahun, but it is believed to have been the Senegalese epidemiologist.

A spokesperson for the CDC said one of its people was at the end of a mission and due to come home, and the other was approaching the end of his or her time in the country. Neither is showing signs of being sick.

The person due to leave had worked in an office setting with the GOARN worker who became ill, Tom Skinner said.