Private jet dispatched to transfer American Ebola victims to US Published August 01, 2014 FoxNews Plans are underway to bring back the two American aid workers sick with Ebola from Africa. A small private jet based in Atlanta has been dispatched to Liberia where the two Americans work for missionary groups. Officials say the jet is outfitted with a special, portable tent designed for transporting patients with highly infectious diseases. The U.S. State Department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are helping to arrange the evacuation. The safety and security of U.S. citizens is our paramount concern, said the State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf, in a statement released Friday morning. Every precaution is being taken to move the patients safely and securely. The two Americans - Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol - are in serious condition and were still in Liberia on Friday, said the charity Samaritans Purse. Their transfer to the U.S. should be completed by early next week, the North Carolina-based group said. Brantly, who works for Samaritans Purse, treated Ebola patients at a Liberia hospital. Writebol also worked at the hospital for another U.S. mission group called SIM. An administrator for the now closed hospital, Dr. Jerry Brown, however, said the two Americans were to leave Liberia on Friday. He did not know how they were being transported or where they were headed. At least one of the Americans is expected to be treated in the U.S. at Atlantas Emory University Hospital, which has a special isolation unit. The hospital declined to identify the patient, citing privacy laws. The private jet can only accommodate one patient at a time. In a press conference Friday afternoon, Emory’s Dr. Bruce Ribner, said the facility had been informed that two patients were coming to the facility; one in a few days, the next a few days after that. Ribner, a professor of infectious diseases who oversees the isolation unit, was told that the patients were safe for transport. The patients will be placed in isolation, in the hospital’s containment unit, which is discrete from the rest of the hospital. This will be the first time a patient with the Ebola virus will be treated in the U.S. and Emory is taking safety precautions seriously, Ribner said. “From the time the air ambulance arrives in the metro Atlanta area, up to and including being hospitalized at Emory University Hospital, we have taken every precaution we know and that our colleagues at the CDC know to ensure no spread of this pathogen,” he said. The patients will be under the care of four infectious disease physicians, including Ribner. At any given time, there will be two nurses available for each patient and subspecialists are available if more care is needed. Ribner noted that, at this time, they do not know how long the patients will be under their care, as degrees of illness complications affect patients’ ability to stabilize and recover. “Based on our experience, policies, procedures, I have no concern about either my personal health or the health of the other health care workers,” Ribner said. Ribner repeatedly emphasized that Emory is not concerned about potential spread of the disease. “We are talking about a viral pathogen that does not have some exotic mode of transmission. [Ebola has] a mode of transmission we are well familiar with with other viruses,” he said. “We have special policies and procedures from the transport side and health care side in the hospital to ensure there is a safe environment to take care of these patients. [I] don’t believe there’s any likelihood at all there would be any secondary [transmission] at all of these patients coming to us.” The Emory isolation unit is one of about four around the country for testing and treating people who may have been exposed to very dangerous viruses, said Dr. Eileen Farnon, a Temple University doctor who formerly worked at the CDC and led teams investigating past Ebola outbreaks in Africa.
Posted on: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 22:35:15 +0000
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