Italy Stages Ebola Evacuation Drill–Just in Case

Big Peace ^ | 9/24/2014

[markomalley]

The patient, a slight woman in her 30s, lay motionless on the stretcher as a half-dozen men in biohazard suits transferred her from a C-27J cargo plane into an ambulance and then into a mobile hospital isolation ward, never once breaking the plastic seal encasing her.

The exercise put on Wednesday was just a simulation of the procedures that would be used to evacuate an Ebola patient to Italy. But for Italian military, Red Cross and health care workers, it offered essential experience, especially for those on the front lines of the country's sea-rescue operation involving thousands of African migrants who arrive here every day in smugglers' boats.

Italian authorities and medical experts insist that the risk of Ebola spreading from Africa to Europe is small, given that the virus only spreads by direct contact with infected blood or other bodily fluids. They say Italy's first case of Ebola will probably be an Italian doctor or missionary who contracts the disease while caring for patients in Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea — the three hardest-hit countries — and is airlifted home for treatment.

[molson209]

It’s starting to sound like Zombies

[Black Agnes]

Wonder how true those rumors are...

[Smokin' Joe]

Ping…

A link to this thread has been posted on the Ebola Surveillance Thread

[Smokin' Joe]

Liberia: Dead Ebola Patients Resurrect?

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Smokin' Joe]

You’re Welcome, Alamo-Girl!

[null and void]

The game of Ebola Roulette continues... (This time with blanks)

*click* spin *click* spin *click* spin…

Eeeee-bolllll-aaaaaa ping!

Bring Out Your Dead

We’re gonna need

a bigger cart!

Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.

The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.

So far the false positive rate is 100%.

At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.

*sigh* Such is life, and death...

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Every country is going to need thousands of "Slammers"...

Fort Detrick offers a look inside 'slammer'

Mar. 18, 2004

In official parlance, the room is called the BSL-4 Patient Isolation Suite. Unofficially, it's called "the slammer." Located at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Frederick's sprawling Fort Detrick, "the slammer" is made up of two, 180-square-foot patient care rooms and a 300-square-foot treatment room. It was here that a USAMRIID scientist who recently was feared to be exposed to a weakened form of the Ebola virus was housed for 21 days between Feb. 12 and March 3.

The scientist, whose name has not been released, is in good health, according to Detrick officials.

But to make sure she didn't pose a threat to her family, friends or anyone else in the Frederick community, doctors deemed it necessary to isolate her in "the slammer," so nicknamed for the crashing sound a door leading into the room makes when closed.

"There's something very final about the way that closes," USAMRIID Operational Medicine Division Containment Care Chief Col. James W. Martin, said as he demonstrated the door.

This week, Detrick officials opened the patient isolation suite to the media for a look inside. The facility is the only one in the country that can operate at biosafety level four, the highest risk level for biological agents.

The suite has been used 20 times since 1972 for isolating patients following a potential exposure in one of Detrick's many laboratories.

According to "The Hot Zone," people just about go insane in the biohazard level 4 isolation facility for three weeks.

[Covenantor]

Very interesting dateline of that article.

Mar. 18, 2004

USAMRIID at Fort Detrick, Fredrick, Maryland tends to stay out of the news, so I wonder what impetus lead to this article getting published on that date.

[Smokin' Joe]

I am not sure, but a while back Italy had isolated some ‘boat people’ from Africa (iirc Eritrea). It seems both Italy and Albania had a few ‘illegal aliens’ who had symptoms like the initial presentation for Ebola. I can’t say I have heard or found anything on that since. (links are in the surveillance thread, a ways back, now).

If anyone could get to a boat in the Med before presenting symptoms, they might be able to make landfall in southern Europe. Of course, the more wealth and power a person had, the more likely they’d be able to move by such routes... underworld or islamist connections might smooth that path as well.

[Smokin' Joe]

The facility is the only one in the country that can operate at biosafety level four, the highest risk level for biological agents.

If that is true (supposedly there are 22 beds at that BSL in the nation), then it would tend to state that Emory or the Nebraska facility was somehow less than a BSL-4 facility, which would lend credence to the meme that 'any hospital could care for an Ebola patient safely'--which is what the administration has been pushing all along.

MAYbe, if you want HCW fatality rates like West Africa, but my bet is NO, they cannot.

If this gets in the wild here, all the 'feelgood' nonsense is only going to get people killed as they discover the hard way that the disease has been consistently underrated.

[exDemMom]

In official parlance, the room is called the BSL-4 Patient Isolation Suite. Unofficially, it's called "the slammer." Located at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Frederick's sprawling Fort Detrick, "the slammer" is made up of two, 180-square-foot patient care rooms and a 300-square-foot treatment room. It was here that a USAMRIID scientist who recently was feared to be exposed to a weakened form of the Ebola virus was housed for 21 days between Feb. 12 and March 3.

Sadly, the slammer no longer exists.