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Merged So Ebola's back......

rocketdodger said:
catsmate1 said:
Based on CDC data, between 1981 and 2000 two hundred US health sector workers were infected with HIV due as a result of their work. The CDC admit this is almost certainly a gross underestimate.
Mistakes happen.
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Maybe. Or maybe the "protocols" are statistical in nature rather than absolute, which would scare me if I were a healthcare worker.
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Needlesticks happen.
 
In a shocking! turn of events, the patient from Braintree, MA as well as the passengers on the quarantined plane have both turned up negative.

HYPE!
 
A second medical staffer at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital has tested positive for EVD. Meanwhile Nina Pham's condition has improved. The Texas Nurses Association has said that breach in Ebola protocol is more frequently about process than an individual's mistake. The CDC and THPH have admitted that they have not identified the specific breach in protocol that led to nurse's Ebola infection.


MSF has announced that nine of their staff working in Africa to treat the Ebola epidemic have died from the disease, with seven more infected.


The Canadian airman in Belleville, Ontario, who was suspected to have contracted EVD while delivering supplies to Sierra Leone, has tested negative.


Nigeria and Senegal may be declared Ebola-free within the week; the status requires six weeks without new cases.
 
The Texas hospital has two secondary infections. Other facilities in the US that have treated Ebola patients have zero so far. It seems that Ebola can be treated without infecting caregivers, but the hospital in Texas was doing something wrong.
 
Kestrel said:
The Texas hospital has two secondary infections. Other facilities in the US that have treated Ebola patients have zero so far. It seems that Ebola can be treated without infecting caregivers, but the hospital in Texas was doing something wrong.
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The problem is that with something like Ebola *everything besides utter and complete preparedness* is wrong.

Here in Dallas the guy wasn't wheeled into the hospital in a sealed tube, into a waiting isolation unit properly equipped. They admitted him normally and had to scramble to deal with the issues that came up on the fly.

Furthermore apparently there is no established procedure in the vast majority of U.S. hospitals to deal with such a situation, and certainly healthcare workers in all those hospitals have little to no training in dealing with such situations. So this could, and probably would, happen in almost any other setting. Dallas just got unlucky, being where this guy's relatives live, and being where a tired and somewhat incompetent set of workers was on staff when things got dicey ( why did the doctor in the first visit not read the nurses notes, why did the nurse not speak to the doctor directly, why did they attempt dialysis and other procedures when he was already a goner, procedures likely to distribute infected particles around the room, etc ).

Have you seen the "protocol" for keeping yourself sterile if you are a healthcare worker treating an ebola patient? It is ludicrous, and it is no wonder so many of them eventually come down with it themselves. The statistics just aren't in their favor -- trying to properly wear and then remove multiple protective layers, without getting *any* possible droplets on yourself, like playing a game of pickup sticks. And they have to do that over and over !!

I'm not defending the hospital, or the doctors or nurses, I'm just saying there actually *is* a systemic issue. Hospitals are stubborn, doctors are stubborn, humanity is stubborn and doesn't like to admit when we don't know all the answers. The CDC itself is pretty stubborn in not recognizing that their own recommendations just don't seem to be something that is easy enough for people to follow.

The fact that the stupid second infected worker was selfish enough to travel by plane well into the danger window after they had cared for an ebola patient is testament to just how stubborn people are.
 
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The CDC had an Ebola awareness program for hospitals before the first case was discovered in the US. Apparently the Dallas hospital had that information. However, a training program does not assure that the staff will do everything right when a real Ebola case appears. When Duncan first went to the hospital, the doctor misdiagnosed his case. And somehow the procedures in use at that hospital allowed two health workers to contract the disease. We do not know and may never know the exact problem. It is even possible these workers did nothing wrong. A minor mistake by someone helping them take off the protective gear could have spread the virus.
 
rocketdodger said:
Have you seen the "protocol" for keeping yourself sterile if you are a healthcare worker treating an ebola patient? It is ludicrous, and it is no wonder so many of them eventually come down with it themselves. The statistics just aren't in their favor -- trying to properly wear and then remove multiple protective layers, without getting *any* possible droplets on yourself, like playing a game of pickup sticks. And they have to do that over and over !!
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And yet, thousands of people have been treated in Africa, with "only" 19 medical staff dieing from Ebola (so far). That hospital in Texas really fumbled the ball. They have apologized, but still don't seem to understand that little clinics in Liberia have done a better job than they have.

One difference may be that in Liberia, clinic workers are sprayed with bleach water before they shed garments. They seem to be sprayed pretty liberally, with 5 gallon backpack sprayers. The video I have seen of ebola training in the U.S. shows workers being sprayed with little 1/2 liter spray bottles. The large amount of bleach water in Liberia might make enough of a difference, so that the garments are mostly decontaminated before being removed, making the exposure to little droplets less dangerous, as the ebola those little droplets are more likely to have been in contact with bleach, and to have been killed.
 
crescent said:
And yet, thousands of people have been treated in Africa, with "only" 19 medical staff dieing from Ebola (so far). That hospital in Texas really fumbled the ball. They have apologized, but still don't seem to understand that little clinics in Liberia have done a better job than they have.

One difference may be that in Liberia, clinic workers are sprayed with bleach water before they shed garments. They seem to be sprayed pretty liberally, with 5 gallon backpack sprayers. The video I have seen of ebola training in the U.S. shows workers being sprayed with little 1/2 liter spray bottles. The large amount of bleach water in Liberia might make enough of a difference, so that the garments are mostly decontaminated before being removed, making the exposure to little droplets less dangerous, as the ebola those little droplets are more likely to have been in contact with bleach, and to have been killed.
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A friend of mine has been training the UK soldiers that are just travelling out there now. The protocols aren't shouldn't be that difficult, but they have to be rigorously enforced. One thing that I saw from the coverage of the training was to use a third person to step a pair of people through robing and dis-robing drills. By enforcing each stage by using observers to pick up people on errors it can make processes easier and reduce risks.
 
Mikemcc said:
A friend of mine has been training the UK soldiers that are just travelling out there now. The protocols aren't shouldn't be that difficult, but they have to be rigorously enforced. One thing that I saw from the coverage of the training was to use a third person to step a pair of people through robing and dis-robing drills. By enforcing each stage by using observers to pick up people on errors it can make processes easier and reduce risks.
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An excellent model, provided sufficient staff are available. Hopefully with the resources being deployed this will be so.


An interesting article in The Lancet:
Ebola control: effect of asymptomatic infection and acquired immunity

Evidence suggests that many Ebola infections are asymptomatic, a factor overlooked by recent outbreak summaries and projections. Particularly, results from one post-Ebola outbreak serosurvey1 showed that 71% of seropositive individuals did not have the disease; another study reported that 46% of asymptomatic close contacts of patients with Ebola were seropositive. Although asymptomatic infections are unlikely to be infectious, they might confer protective immunity and thus have important epidemiological consequences.
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I am getting more worried about the near hysteria being fuled by the most irresponsible media coverage I have seen in a while then Ebola itself.
 
rjh01 said:
I wonder if people with immunity could be trained to treat people with Ebola? Plus decontaminate clothing and other material.
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Don't be ridiculous. Survivors should be forced into camps, and threatened with death if they try to escape. Because they are contaminated, unclean. Because panic.

Honestly, people seem to be approaching that mindset.

The best thing to do is to put resources into Africa to contain it. We will not get good minds to work down there if we refuse to being them back if they get infected. A great many people are currently supporting some very counter-productive policies out of nothing more than blind panic.
 
Nigeria has formally been declared Ebola free.

The suspected EVD case in Stockholm has been confirmed not to have the virus.

The family Amber Vinson, the second Dallas nurse infected with EVD, have released a statement about her infection.

Teresa Romero is now free of the Ebola virus. The mechanism for her infection is still unclear; it may have happened when she removed her protective suit.
 
The lead headline currently on CNN proclaims "Ebola hysteria: An epic, epidemic overreaction"

Gotta love the press - use the news cycle to spark a panic and over reaction, because that brings in the ratings and the page clicks. Then, bring in even more ratings and page clicks by reporting on the hysteria they caused, with no mention of who started the hysteria in the first place.
 
dudalb said:
Well, at least bleach and santisers have practical use.probably a good idea, Ebola or no Ebola to scrub down your bathroom and kitchen a couple of times a year.
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I work for a chemical company that makes cleaning products and about three dozen different disinfectants and sanitizers. Last month our customers were asking if we had products that were effective against enterovirus. Now they're asking about Ebola.
It's illegal to make disinfectant efficacy claims that haven't been approved by the EPA and that aren't on the product label, so we tell them the same thing for both.
"While there are no EPA-approved products specifically approved for use against (insert organism), the CDC has recommended the use of disinfectants effective against nonenveloped viruses, such as Norovirus, Adenovirus, or Parvovirus. We have the following products that meet the CDC's recommendations:..."

Ebola is an enveloped virus, but since nonenveloped viruses are more resistant to disinfectants, they're making the recommendation since these products would be more potent and more likely to kill Ebola.


Regarding the chlorine dioxide claim...while I wouldn't recommend drinking it, and it certainly isn't a cure, it is an EPA-approved antimicrobial. However, it's mainly a water chlorination product or sanitizer for food-contact surfaces, demonstrating at least a 99.999% reduction in microorganism population in 30 seconds, rather than the 100% kill for disinfectants. When chlorine dioxide is in a disinfectant, it's generally paired with quaternary ammonium chloride compounds, which are standard disinfectants.

"Hey, it kills germs. Drinking it must be a cure."
Sorry, doesn't work that way.
 
crescent said:
The lead headline currently on CNN proclaims "Ebola hysteria: An epic, epidemic overreaction"

Gotta love the press - use the news cycle to spark a panic and over reaction, because that brings in the ratings and the page clicks. Then, bring in even more ratings and page clicks by reporting on the hysteria they caused, with no mention of who started the hysteria in the first place.
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Yeah, CNN deserves some kind of hypocrisy award for inflaming hysteris for weeks with it's sensationalstic coverage, then piously attacking "hysteric overreaction".
 
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