Ebola Outbreak: 56 Being Monitored In Spain

Sky News ^ | October 7, 2014

[Oldeconomybuyer]

A Madrid nurse who became the first person to contract ebola outside of Africa is being treated with antibodies from survivors of the illness, hospital officials have revealed.

A second nurse who also helped treat an infected priest is among the four being monitored by health workers, as is a man who arrived on a flight from Nigeria displaying symptoms.

Spain's health authorities said they had been in touch with a total of 22 people who are thought to have been in contact with the 40-year-old nurse, whose name has not been released.

They are also monitoring around 30 other members of the health care team that treated one of the missionaries.

EU countries have demanded an explanation from Spain's health minister as to how the nurse caught the disease, despite all the precautions taken.

Meanwhile, the British Army said more than 100 British Army medics were being sent to Sierra Leone to help tackle the ebola crisis within the next few weeks.

They will staff a field hospital set up specifically to treat medics who have caught the disease, not members of the general public.

Experts say quarantine systems in developed countries including the UK, US and Spain mean the disease is very unlikely to spread to the same extent seen in poor African countries.

[livius]

As I posted on the other thread, the nurse’s aide (she’s not a nurse) who treated the missionary in the hospital and now has Ebola went on vacation right after his death. When she started feeling sick and had a fever, she went to the hospital - but not her hospital, Carlos III, and instead a general hospital in her neighborhood, Alcorcon (Madrid). She sat there for four hours, was surrounded by other patients, had her temperature and pulse and bp taken by the other nurses, etc. Then it occurred to her to mention that she had been in contact with an ebola patient.

They packed her off right away to Carlos III, but of course, by then she’d certainly had plenty of opportunity to spread it.

What in the world is the matter with people?

[BunnySlippers]

Sooooo ... starts out small. Ends up BIG!

[Army Air Corps]

Ping.

[Black Agnes]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/07/ebola-crisis-substandard-equipment-nurse-positive-spain

“The nurse was in a stable condition. She had alerted the ministry of a slight fever on 30 September and been checked into a hospital in Alcorcón, on the outskirts of Madrid, with a high fever on Monday.

The nurse, who is married with no children, was transferred to Carlos III hospital early on Tuesday morning.

El Mundo reported that it was the nurse who asked to be tested for Ebola, having to insist repeatedly on being tested before it was done on Monday.”

[livius]

Hmmm. The story keeps changing. Figures.

The other thing that we’re not hearing here is that it has become a political football, since there are elections coming up. All of the different party leaders are posturing and charging everybody else at all levels with incompetence or wilful neglect or whatever and demanding their heads (minister of health, regional health departments, etc.). But it’s not going to solve the problem.

Actually, I don’t think politics are particularly relevant in this case, which appears to be the result of human stupidity or perhaps fear: why didn’t she go back to the hospital where she worked, which surely would have known her medical and relevant personal history? I suspect that she may not have mentioned the ebola contact until she realized that she couldn’t deny it any longer.

That’s always the problem with a disease like this; I’m sure many plague carriers reacted the same way. The African patients such as Patrick Sawyer and Duncan reacted the same way, acting almost as if they thought they could outrun it.

Everybody obviously needs to beef up their procedures, and they probably only do it when it’s too late. I think we’ll find the same thing in Dallas, alas, where they are being way too dismissive of the whole thing.

[null and void]

Only 56 out of a country of 48 million?

Nothing to see here, move along!™

Bring Out Your Dead

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...

[Black Agnes]

” I suspect that she may not have mentioned the ebola contact until she realized that she couldn’t deny it any longer.”

Which would be why she alerted the ministry of her fever on Sep 30. Because she was hiding her contact.

Which is why she repeatedly requested to be tested for ebola. Because she was hiding it.

BTW, this is exactly what you can expect from ‘nationalized healthcare’. Cost cutting at precisely the wrong junctures. Ebola tests are expensive. And the general opinion was she was safe because she was Western, wasn’t bathing in bodily fluids of the patient, and used appropriate protective gear as determined by the same cost cutting bureaucrats that didn’t immediately pick her up on the 30th when she reported a slight fever.

[Black Agnes]

And, btw, in countries with ‘nationalized healthcare’, you can’t just show up at a hospital outside of your district without a really darned good reason. Carlos III might not even be available for patients without their being referred there. People here have no clue about how healthcare really operates in nationalized healthcare countries. They just assume you can ‘pick the best hospital in your opinion and then show up on the doorstep to get care there’. It doesn’t work that way in NHS type countries.

[Grampa Dave]

American Nurses are rightfully concerned about the lack of training, guidance and necessary personal gear and supplies to handle/treat suspected patients with Ebola.

Nurses stage Ebola ‘die-in’ on Las Vegas Strip

http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/news/entry/nurses-pretend-to-die-during-ebola-protest-in-las-vegas/

http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2014/09/24/3318356_nurses-to-march-on-vegas-strip.html?rh=1

American Rns say that they are unprepared to handle ebola patients

http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/news/entry/us-nurses-say-they-are-unprepared-to-handle-ebola-patients/

[livius]

That’s true, but since she worked at the hospital (Carlos III), was known to the staff there and knew she had had contact with ebola patients there, she should have gone there first. Also, the nurses I heard interviewed (at the other hospital) said she never mentioned anything about ebola until she had already been there about 4 hours.

I would suspect, also, that she’s lying about having followed procedures. She was in a heavily contaminated area, and if she removed her glove or her mask or pushed back some part of her suit at some point, she could have gotten it onto herself at some location where it would be able to make its way into her system (probably through touching her mouth or nose).

I’m not defending socialized medicine, btw. But everybody in Spain knows that if you really want treatment, you go to a private hospital if you can at all do so. I really think this woman was in denial and just thought somehow that if she told herself it wasn’t really ebola but just a touch of the flu, that’s what it would turn out to be.

Human nature. I think now that we are discovering how much more contagious the virus is, we’re going to have to take much firmer steps: no travel from those countries, people who get the disease there have to be treated there, and quarantine and isolation must be taken seriously. Not like Duncan’s family in Dallas that went out and did their grocery shopping while in “quarantine.” I’m not advocating hysteria, but it’s definitely not being taken seriously enough.

[Black Agnes]

I don’t think she would have contacted the health ministry about a fever on the 30th of september if she were hiding it.

Any further contact between her and anyone else from there on out is the fault of the NHS there. ‘.’

She should have been picked up IMMEDIATELY on contacting them with a fever on the 30th.

[Black Agnes]

http://www.al.com/news/mobile/index.ssf/2014/10/us_hospitals_ready_to_treat_eb.html

Notice the ‘protective gear’ those nurses are wearing.

That’s approximately what the spaniards recommended and used to treat their patients.

Now, contrast that with WHO guidelines that indicate need for a respirator. And pics of MSF workers who can’t afford respirators but use TWO masks and a lot more gear:

http://pulse.ng/news/disturbing-we-are-losing-battle-against-ebola-msf-reveals-id3101869.html

The AL workers are following CDC guidelines. MSF knows better...

So yeah, she likely got infected at work from incidental exposure. Probably because she was insufficiently protected. Due to cost cutting measures.

BTW, the other nurses are currently protesting this insufficient garb:

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/world/madrid-ebola-case-was-avoidable-experts-say-as-european-authorities-demand-answers-from-spain/story-fni6um3i-1227083151591?nk=715406428c06cc32588156824a7e0f47

You’ll notice that now even the ambulance driver in one of the pictures is wearing WAY MORE garb than the official CDC guidelines.

And the spaniards are re-evaluating their protection procedures:

[Black Agnes]

And it doesn’t really matter where you work under a NHS type system. You are assigned care and doctors based on where you live.

The health ministry there owns this. Lock stock and barrel.

[1Old Pro]

Obama needs a distraction, I think he wants an Ebola outbreak.

[livius]

More information. She apparently didn’t go to the emergency room until she was already hemorrhaging. She also sat for a nursing exam a few days earlier, although I don’t know if she would have been contagious at that point.

Most of the other nurses apparently didn’t see her, and their info was second-hand because the emergency room was cordoned off once she came in. She announced in the emergency room that she had ebola, and by that time she didn’t have just a fever, but some of the really awful symptoms (the hemorrhaging, blisters, etc.).

Also, she said that she did in fact go to Carlos III first, and they sent her to Alcorcon! It sounds as if she already had the visible signs, too.

This hospital had just a handful of basic-level masks and the usual gloves, and virtually all of the personnel that handled her did so without protection.

Talk about unprepared. I saw a statement in the press from some EU health person airily saying that it can’t spread in Europe...but it already has, and I’m sure we’ll be seeing more cases from this one.

[Black Agnes]

As I said. From Sep 30 on, the health ministry owns this one. Totally.

Probably can’t sue some lower level functionary for incompetence either for not having her picked up on the 30th. Probably too late for experimental drugs to work too.

NHS is deadly under the best of circumstances. In a pandemic it’s probably little better than the hospital systems in Africa...

[Black Agnes]

http://www.singtomeohmuse.com/viewtopic.php?t=5725&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=3180

That’s a thread with posts on ebola articles from different places. It’s a loooong thread at this point, but very informative. Particularly information wrt the stuff you do NOT hear about in our media.

[Smokin' Joe]

Experts say quarantine systems in developed countries including the UK, US and Spain mean the disease is very unlikely to spread to the same extent seen in poor African countries.

Only if the systems are used promptly to contain localized outbreaks, and limit entry of the disease and infected people.

[Smokin' Joe]

Ping...

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