Ebola - U.S. not ready for Ebola Outbreak

http://www.ktvu.com/ap/ap/california/nurses-to-march-on-vegas-strip-about-ebola-prep/nhS5t/

LAS VEGAS —

U.S. hospitals aren't ready for an Ebola outbreak, according to nurses who staged a "die-in" Wednesday outside a Las Vegas Strip resort where they were holding a union convention.

Many protesters in the crowd of about 1,000 who attended the Planet Nurse convention wore bright red T-shirts and suits resembling hazardous-materials gear as they streamed through the Planet Hollywood casino floor before crossing Las Vegas Boulevard to the Bellagio resort.

Ebola "can easily come to our shores, and we're not ready," said Julia Scott, a registered nurse from Largo Medical Center in Florida who was attending the California Nurses Association and National Nurses United convention.

At the sound of a gong, Scott and dozens of other protesters dropped to the sidewalk in front of the iconic Bellagio fountain, where others used chalk to outline their "dead" bodies, writing the hashtag #StopEbolaRNRN inside the tracings.

It was followed by a moment of silence for international health workers who have died while caring for Ebola patients in West Africa.

"It's not acceptable that these people are dying," RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United, told her fellow protestors.

U.S. policymakers are in denial, DeMoro said. "It is going to come here," she said.

Union representatives called the protest a "die-in." They pointed to a recent case of a patient tested for Ebola at a northern California hospital.

In that case, the Kaiser Permanente South Sacramento Medical Center ruled out the Ebola virus. Union nurses complained the patient was in contact with health workers in a public waiting area for about a half-hour.

Medclinician

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/09/25/obama-urges-world-to-do-more-to-tackle-ebola/?intcmp=latestnews

My question what do we need to get over and above gloves and masks? Can someone from our medical community here make a list of what we need? I have been looking but really don't know.

10 is what they taught us in college micro.

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/10/03/ebola-patients-family-quarantined-as-officials-search-for-possible-exposures/?intcmp=latestnews

Med,if the CDC had already sterilized these peoples apartment or moved them to a quarantine area,I would say that the CDC was ready. But they have not done either one of these things yet. We are only talking about 4 people. The CDC has not even given them clean sheets for the bed that this Ebola patient slept in. They are still sleeping on the same sheets that he did.It looks like they could have gotten them clean sheet by now. I think that some one finally started delivering food after 2 days.
Again we are only talking about 4 people.Johnray1

Where is the info source on microwave decontamination?

Germ Nerd wrote: Where is the info source on microwave decontamination? I've been wondering about that scenario.

It makes sense - I know a lot of hazardous waste is disinfected by passing it by multiple microwave generators on conveyor belts before being shredded.

At least they have someone dealing with the bedding now. And when that guy catches it, all they need to do is pick up another copy of the Pennysaver and find his number again.

The Handling of this Ebola Crisis Is Like a Bad Horror Film

http://www.thedailysheeple.com/the-h...or-film_102014

http://www.thedailysheeple.com/the-h...or-film_102014

Satori wrote: The Handling of this Ebola Crisis Is Like a Bad Horror Film http://www.thedailysheeple.com/the-h...or-film_102014 http://www.thedailysheeple.com/the-h...or-film_102014

Hello Satori - so far I don't think this is a banned link

http://www.thedailysheeple.com/the-handling-of-this-ebola-crisis-is-like-a-bad-horror-film_102014

If we cannot treat a single patient and demonstrate the ability of our medical system in the U.S. to do so, how could be hope to deal with an Ebola epidemic? The handling of the isolation, the diagnosis, releasing him back into the general population, and ignoring the fact he clearly stated he was from a part of West Africa hard hit by Ebola, will go down in history much like FEMA's response to Katrina.

http://www.post-gazette.com/news/nation/2014/10/06/Ebola-patient-struggling/stories/201410060090

DALLAS — The first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States was fighting for his life at a Dallas hospital Sunday and appeared to be receiving none of the experimental medicines for the virus, a top U.S. health official said.

Thomas Eric Duncan became ill after arriving in the Texas city from Liberia two weeks ago, heightening concerns that the worst Ebola epidemic on record could spread from West Africa, where it began in March. The hemorrhagic fever has killed at least 3,400 people out of the nearly 7,500 probable, suspected and confirmed cases.

“The man in Dallas, who is fighting for his life, is the only patient to develop Ebola in the United States,” Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

In a media briefing with reporters Sunday, Dr. Frieden said he was scheduled to brief President Barack Obama today.

Dr. Frieden said doses of the experimental medicine ZMapp were “all gone” and that the drug, produced by San Diego-based Mapp Biopharmaceutical, is “not going to be available anytime soon.”

Asked about a second experimental drug, made by Canada’s Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corp, he said it “can be quite difficult for patients to take.”

Dr. Frieden said the doctor and the patient’s family would decide whether to use the drug, but if “they wanted to, they would have access to it.”

“As far as we understand, experimental medicine is not being used,” Dr. Frieden said. “It’s really up to his treating physicians, himself, his family what treatment to take.”

Mr. Duncan remained in critical condition, Wendell Watson, spokesman for Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, said Sunday.

Earlier on Sunday, health officials said they were also seeking a “low-risk” homeless man who was one of 38 people who had potentially had contact with Mr. Duncan. Later on Sunday, a spokeswoman for Dallas County’s top political official, Judge Clay Jenkins, said the man had been found and was being monitored.

At Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, parishioners prayed for Mr. Duncan, congregation member Louise Troh — who is quarantined because of her close contact with Mr. Duncan — and both of their families.

“Although this disease has become personal to us, we realize we’re not the first to know its devastation, and we are not the ones most desperately affected,” associate pastor Mark Wingfeld told the church audience.

He encouraged parishioners to focus not only on the Dallas family but also on those in West Africa stricken with Ebola.

In Nebraska, another hospital was preparing for the arrival of an Ebola patient who contracted the virus in Liberia, a spokesman said Sunday.

Taylor Wilson, Nebraska Medical Center spokesman, would only identify the patient as a male U.S. citizen expected to arrive today. But the father of Ashoka Mukpo, a freelance cameraman working for NBC News who contracted Ebola in Liberia, told Reuters on Friday that his son was going to Nebraska for treatment.

The Nebraska hospital last month also treated and released, Rick Sacra, an American missionary who also contracted Ebola in Liberia.

Dr. Sacra was admitted to UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, Mass., on Saturday for a likely respiratory infection that is not believed to be a recurrence of the disease, hospital officials said.

Mr. Duncan’s case has highlighted problems that American public health officials are trying furiously to address: The Dallas hospital that admitted him initially did not recognize the deadly disease and sent him home with antibiotics, only for him to return two days later in an ambulance.

“The issue of the missed diagnosis initially is concerning,” Dr. Frieden said, adding that public health officials had redoubled their efforts to raise awareness of the disease.

“We’re seeing more people calling us, considering the possibility of Ebola — that’s what we want to see,” he said on CNN. “We don’t want people not to be diagnosed.”

Dr. Frieden said he was confident the disease would not spread widely within the United States. U.S. officials are also scaling up their response in West Africa, where Ebola presents an enormous challenge, he added.

“But it’s going to take time,” Dr. Frieden said. “The virus is spreading so fast that it’s hard to keep up.”

When asked Sunday if the United States should suspend flights to and from affected countries or impose a visa ban on travelers from those countries, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said “absolutely not.”

“When you start closing off countries like that, there is a real danger of making things worse,” Mr. Fauci said on “Fox News Sunday.”

“You can cause unrest in the country,” he said. “It’s conceivable that governments could fall if you just isolate them completely.”

The CDC has identified 10 people who had direct contact with Mr. Duncan as being at greatest risk of infection. Another 38 were being monitored as potential contacts, out of 114 people initially evaluated for exposure risks. None from either group has shown symptoms, health officials said.

Ebola — which can cause fever, vomiting and diarrhea — spreads through contact with bodily fluids such as blood or saliva.

comment: These are certainly not examples of the medical system's finest in dealing with what could be a possible epidemic of this in the U.S. Actions speak louder than words, and despite of all the hype we are so able to deal with this, these cases are not a demonstration of that.

For those of us watching the unfolding of this- there is much soul searching as we try to sort out the written in stone statements we are not at risk.  We should certainly pray they are right and our system is not put to the test because so far- it's not cutting it.

Medclinician

The current response to Ebola in the United States has been a relentless series of mistakes and poor judgement calls. To actually put an Ebola patient with a fever on a plane exposing many passengers to demontrate Ebola is not contagious, is ludicrous. It is highly contagious and it was a mistake to expose a planeload of people to it. It is spreading in West Africa and has gone to the United States.

Soon, it will be in every country in the world. We are not ready for Ebola in the U.S. We may have been ready for an Ebola which spreads in villages and kills everyone but this is not the Zaire strain. It is more than 200 times removed from that. We are ill prepared in the U.S. to even handle D68 or a large number of outbreaks, much less an Ebola which could soon be very airborne.

Medclinician

Does Ebola mutate faster or more easily than Avian Influenza viruses or other influenza viruses?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4rpjTQUY3bw

Comments on this?

Med

Kyle wrote: Does Ebola mutate faster or more easily than Avian Influenza viruses or other influenza viruses?

Much slower. Influenza is only beaten by HIV.