Kansas City area health officials say they re ready if Ebola arrives here
About a month ago, a 23 year old man made a call to the University of Kansas Hospital days after he arrived home from Sierra Leone in Western Africa, where he was a Peace Corps volunteer.
He said, I m sick as heck and I m afraid I have Ebola, recalled Lee Norman, the hospital s chief medical officer. We were afraid, patagonia outlet store freeport3too.
The man had come down with brutal chills, fever and muscle aches, all symptoms of Ebola. Hospatagonia mixed guide jacketpital staff in face guapatagonia torrentshell reviewrds and impermeable gowns were waiting when he arrived.
Tests showed the man was having a severe bout of malaria. But just to be safe, the hospital discharged him to home quarantine to wait out the last few days of the 21 day incubation period for Ebola virus. He recopatagonia better sweater coat amazonvered from the malaria. He never had Ebola, tests later confirmed.
A false alarm, but that may not be the case next time. shifted from the hypothetical to the real Tuesday with the first case of the deadly and gruesome disease to be diagnosed in this country in Dallas, an eight hour drive from Kansas City.
And the consequences of a misstep by the health care system became shockingly clear when Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas admitted that the patient had gone to its emergency room days earlier, told nurses he had traveled from Africa where Ebola is spreading in several countries and been sent home with antibiotics that do nothing to stop a virus.
Now Thomas Eric Duncan is in the hospital under isolation and was listepatagonia buy lessd in critical condition on Saturday. The Dallas family he was staying with has been moved from their apartment to another home with better living conditions, where they remain under quarantine.
Publicpatagonia flannel review health workers have sorted through 114 people, including the family, the ambpatagonia outlet store freeport1ulance crew and hospipatagonia men's lightweight guide pants reviewstal staff, who may have come into contact with Duncan. Of those, about 50 are being monitored daily for fever or other signs of infection. Nine of them very likely came in contact with Duncan and are considered at high risk of infection.
patagonia jackets where to buySo far, none has developed Ebola symptoms, David Lakey, Commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services, said Saturday. Meanwhile, hospitals are developing contingency plans in case any do become ill, he said.
We know how to stop outbreaks of Ebola, Tom Frieden, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said during a press conference Saturday.
The key to containment, Frieden said, is the strategy being used in Dallas and something public health agencies do routinely: Trace the patagonia outlet store freeport2contacts of people with infectious diseases and make sure that these contacts don t spread the disease further.
It s a core activity for us in public health, he said.
Kansas City area health officials appear similarly assured.
If an infectious disease like Ebola comes to Kansas City, metro health departments and hospitals are prepared to handle it, 10 health departments said Friday in a joint statement released by the Mid America Regional Council.
Theypatagonia outlet store freeport point to their success in containing and ultimately extinguishing a metrowide outbreak of measles earlier this year. Thirty cases were confirmed among both children and adults. More than 60 people were quarantined.
Infected people don t become contagious until Ebola s symptoms fever, headache, muscle pains, diarrhea, vomiting, stomach ache and bleeding, and bruising start to appear. And Ebola virus is spread through direct contact with an infected person s blood or body fluids, like sweat and saliva. It isn t spread through the air. So one popular in the movies scenario a sneeze in a theater spreading contagion to hundreds isn t likely to apply. compared to Western Africa. That region has seen about 7,500 Ebola cases, including more than 3,400 deaths, in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, with the numbers steadily mounting.
People are so nervous about (whether) what s happening there is going to happen here, Norman of KU Hospital said. We have the law and order, public health resources and testing facilities. They don t.
Medical experts point to two essentials for stopping an infectious disease outbreak: Having adequate facilities to effectively isolate and care for infected people, and having personnel to locate and quarantine people who have been in contact with someone who s infected.
Consider the resources at KU Hospital alone. The hospital has designated three intensive care isolation rooms for Ebola patients. The rooms have negative air pressure ventilation systems, so air from the room won t escape when the door is opened. As further protection, each isolation room has an anteroom; if its door is left open more than 30 seconds, an alarm sounds.
Anyone going into the isolation room will suit up in an impermeable gown, gloves that go up to the forearms, booties, a surgical mask and a plastic face shield.
We re going a couple of extra steps here with protective gear, said Amanda Gartner, an infection control nurse at the hospital. This is a different disease than what we re used to. We re going to err on the side of caution.
About 15 nurses have volunteered for special training in taking care of Ebola patients. patagonia guide pants barnIt s a high risk, but low frequency scenario. We don t want people going, Oh, gosh, what do I do? Garpatagonia guide pants joketner said.
Every hospital in the metro area is expected to be similarly prepared to accept patients with Ebola symptoms, said Dan Manley, health care system program manager of the Mid America Regional Council, or MARC.
Each hospital has a plan in place on how they would handle a patient like this, Manley said.
MARC facilitates coordination among the dozens of hospitals and health departments and fpatagonia outlet store freeport0irst responders in the Kansas City area. That coordination is crucial for tracing the contacts of an infected person.
