Pandemics

CDC: U.S. has to rethink the way it addresses Ebola infection control

ASSOCIATED PRESS                                                            Oct. 13, 2014

By Connie Cass

DALLAS --Every hospital must know how to diagnose Ebola in people who have been in West Africa and be ready to isolate a suspected case, Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Monday.

He said the CDC is working to improve protections for hospital workers after a nurse caring for an Ebola patient in Dallas became the first person to become infected with the disease inside the U.S.

‘‘We have to rethink the way we address Ebola infection control,’’ Frieden said, ‘‘because even a single infection is unacceptable.’’

The CDC is scrambling to interview all staff of the Dallas hospital who could have been exposed to the patient, a Liberian man who became sick after traveling to the United States and died at the hospital. Anyone at risk will be monitored, he said.

‘‘We need to consider the possibility that there could be additional cases, particularly among the health care workers who cared for the index patient’’ — the Liberian man — ‘‘when he was so ill,’’ Frieden said.

HUFFINGTON  POST                     Oct.12, 2014      11:08 AM
By Ariel Edwards-Levy

The Texas health care worker who contracted Ebola after providing care for an infected patient likely breached safety protocols, health officials said Sunday.

"Certainly there has to have been an inadvertent, innocent breach of the protocol of taking care of the patient within the personal protective equipment -- that extremely rarely happens," Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told Martha Raddatz on ABC's "This Week" Sunday. "We've been taking care of Ebola patients since 1976. Groups like Doctors Without Borders who do that almost never have an infection, because of the experience of doing this."

WASHINGTON POST                                                      OCT 12, 2014

By J. Freedom du Lac, Abby Phillip and Brady Dennis

DALLAS, TEX--  In the first apparent case of Ebola transmission in the United States, a Texas hospital worker who treated an Ebola-stricken Liberian man has tested positive for the deadly virus.

A police car drives past the entrance to the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. (LM Otero/AP)

The preliminary test result was announced early Sunday, four days after the death of Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan in Dallas; the diagnosis has not been confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

REUTERS                         Oct 3. 2014

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Nurses, the frontline care providers in U.S. hospitals, say they are untrained and unprepared to handle patients arriving in their hospital emergency departments infected with Ebola.

Many say they have gone to hospital managers, seeking training on how to best care for patients and protect themselves and their families from contracting the deadly disease....

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has repeatedly said that U.S. hospitals are prepared to handle such patients. Many infectious disease experts agree with that assessment.

... Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas that is now caring for the first Ebola patient to be diagnosed in this country had completed Ebola training just before Thomas Eric Duncan arrived in their emergency department on Sept. 26. But despite being told that Duncan had recently traveled from Liberia, hospital staff failed to recognize the Ebola risk and sent him home, where he spent another two days becoming sicker and more infectious.