Ebola Has now reached USA News that a Texas man was diagnosed with Ebola after returning home from a visit to Liberia has raised new concerns about the spread of the disease. For health workers the stakes are particularly high - more than 120 have died in West Africa since the Ebola outbreak began early this year. In the United States, public health experts are working to reassure the public and medical workers that the virus does not endanger communities here. The first Ebola patient to arrive in the United States flew on a plane specially equipped and designed to prevent the spread of the virus. That patient, Kent Brantly, entered Emory University hospital through a special passage to the isolation unit. During a news conference outside the hospital, Jay Varkey reassured the public that they were not at risk. I cant think of a better place in the world, other than this hospital at Emory University, to care for this patient, said Varkey. Some hospitals in developed countries have isolation units equipped with their own laboratories. Technicians do all the lab work right in the unit. And yet, not every worker at Emory was comfortable with having an Ebola patient there. There was a lot of feedback that we got back from our staff that this infection is a death sentence. This infection can have 90 to 100 percent mortality rates, said Varkey. Varkey and the hospitals other infectious disease experts met with staff members. We had key leaders in both nursing as well as the medical staff, infectious diseases [departments] who actually rounded in the hospital itself, from nursing station to nursing station and from unit to unit to make ourselves available to answer questions, recalled Varkey. Brantly eventually recovered, as did a second patient, Nancy Writebol. Rick Sacra, the third Ebola patient flown to the U.S., was successfully treated at the University of Nebraska Hospital. Though my crisis has reached a successful end here, unfortunately, the Ebola crisis continues to spin out of control, said Sacra.
Posted on: Thu, 02 Oct 2014 08:26:49 +0000
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