U.S. hospitals unprepared to handle Ebola waste

Reuters via Yahoo News ^ | 9/2/14 | Julie Steenhuysen

[Kartographer]

Ebola symptoms can include copious amounts of vomiting and diarrhoea, and nurses and doctors at Emory donned full hazmat suits to protect themselves. Bags of waste quickly began to pile up.

"At its peak, we were up to 40 bags a day of medical waste, which took a huge tax on our waste management system," Emory's Dr. Aneesh Mehta told colleagues at a medical meeting earlier this month.

Emory sent staff to Home Depot to buy as many 32-gallon rubber waste containers with lids that they could get their hands on. Emory kept the waste in a special containment area for six days until its Atlanta neighbor, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, helped broker an agreement with Stericycle.

[Chgogal]

They have to bag every piece of waste as it happens. There is no garbage can.

[TangledUpInBlue]

By all means though, let’s bring more of these people back home!

[knittnmom]

In "The Hot Zone", a military unit was called in to secure the premises during an outbreak at a medical research facility in Virginia. One of the doctors at the facilities was an army veterinarian researcher. Her husband led the unit to secure the premises.

Coulple of things in that book amazed me:

1. the number of medical professionals who, after exposure, denied that they could have caught Ebola (Some were lucky, and did not. Another did, but spread it to at least 30 other people before dying. She has a strain of the disease named after her)

2. At the research facilities, contaminated waste was simply poured down a drain into the sewer system, followed by bleach to kill the germs. Bleach. No burning or sophisticated decontamination chemicals - just bleach.

[iowacornman]

This is a disaster waiting to happen when the surviving soldiers come back . There are present projections of 1.4 million cases in Africa by the first of next year. Motality is at least %60. possibly 80%. I predict this will be the number one issue in the Presidential election. I fear wide spread panic— all because obama sent troops over there to get infected. They too will be in denial and we will have an epidemic. The only thing they can do is enforce quarentine but they wont. I guess they stand around and carry water and towells. Totally obsurd.

[meadsjn]

Interesting that much waste for only two patients?

Don't worry. With 50 million or so patients, we'll see some economy of scale -- maybe save 50% of the trashbags.

[ansel12]

“In October 1989, 100 crab-eating macaques were imported from Ferlite Farms, located in Calamba, Laguna south of Manila, Philippines, and ended up at the Reston Primate Quarantine Unit. At that time, the Reston facility already had 500 macaque monkeys housed in their facility. Shortly after their arrival, scientists started noticing an abnormally high mortality rate; by the beginning of November 1989, 29 of the 100 monkeys had died. In a post-mortem examination, the on-site veterinarian, Dan Dalgard, noticed that the interior of the body looked very strange with a massively swollen spleen and blood inside the intestines. He suspected that the deaths were caused by simian hemorrhagic fever or SHFV.

Reston’s veterinarian then sent samples of the tissues to the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases or USAMRIID, located north of Reston at Fort Detrick, Maryland. USAMRIID is the only laboratory in the Defense system that can study high risk viruses that require maximum biohazard containment. The virus that caused the SHFV was considered to require a Biosafety Level 4 (BSL-4) designation, the highest level of containment. When working in a BSL-4 lab, scientists wear a Hazmat suit and have a self-contained oxygen system. They work in negatively pressured room to prevent viruses from escaping and must go through a series of showers before entering and exiting. In the case of the SHFV filovirus, the veterinarian at the Reston facility sent the frozen samples to the USAMRIID wrapped in tin foil. By the time the samples arrived at their destination, they had thawed and fluids were dripping from the packaging.

Meanwhile, back at the Reston facility, veterinarians euthanized the remaining monkeys from the October shipment, however, despite those precautions, monkeys in other rooms began to show the same symptoms and die.

USAMRIID analyzed the Reston virus and determined that the cause of death was Ebola, the same strain that had caused the outbreaks in Zaire and Sudan in 1976. In those outbreaks, more than 600 cases were noted with a mortality rate of 53 percent in Sudan and 88 percent in Zaire. By the time USAMRIID had ascertained that the Ebola - Zaire virus was responsible, six weeks had passed since the monkeys started dying in Reston, Virginia. A program was put in place by USAMRIID, the Centers for Disease Control and the Virginia Department of Health to prevent the virus from spreading. When USAMRIID staff arrived for a walkthrough of the Reston facility, they found staff and animal handlers were still working without taking precautions. The decision was made to euthanize all of the facility’s monkeys, however, during the process, a single monkey escaped. It took the better part of two days to catch and euthanize the escapee, an incident that could have led to further infections. For the following eleven days, the Reston Primate Quarantine Unit was decontaminated using bleach. Decontamination also included a three day period when the building was filled with formaldehyde fumes to ensure complete cleansing.

Of the 1787 staff members who had contact with the infected monkeys at the Reston facility, only two were hospitalized. It was also found that six people who had worked with the primates had serologic evidence (i.e. antibodies) of an ebola infection. Both hospitalized staff survived their illnesses. Scientists later found that the Reston virus was a new variant, now known as EBO-R, that had slight genetic differences from the other known ebola viruses. An additional six individuals had In the Reston variant, there was a high death rate among infected monkeys, however, it was not deadly to humans.”

[KoRn]

The trick is to get in VERY EARLY, when Ebola initially gets started here, because everyone and their brother will jump in as soon as it becomes obvious. Would be a bit of a gamble, but that’s the case with most all trading/investing. I think that would have the potential to be a clear home run though.

[ansel12]

The United States Army is always involved in Ebola outbreaks, and infectious diseases and biological warfare are areas of expertise for the U.S. Army.

In Africa the larger number of troops will be used to build 17 treatment centers, and a hospital with 25 beds to treat medical personnel, and they will be trying to train 500 medical helpers a week, while handling international logistics and supplies movement to those fighting to contain it.

[lacrew]

Our local hospital shut down its incinerator around 10 years ago.

Why?

E-P-A

[blam]

"By all means though, let’s bring more of these people back home!

Well, you know that we'll be obliged to take in the Ebola refugees.
They can come here, be taught what is a bathroom and how to use it and go on welfare for the rest of their lives....paid for by you.

[KoRn]

I can easily imagine that....

Even though burning medical waste in a high temperature incinerator probably does NOTHING to the air, just the thought of it likely bothers stupid people.

The same type of people that would have no problem burning coal if it was a pretty rainbow color, but since it’s all nasty and dirty looking, it MUST be bad....

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[null and void]

The game of Ebola Roulette continues...

*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...

[Smokin' Joe]

You’re Welcome, Alamo-Girl!

[ladyjane]

And the disease stays in the sperm for what - three months?

Sure, the military guys who have been shipped out for months, there’re going to come back to this country and stay celibate for three more months?

[Veggie Todd]

Send it to the Mexican El Presidente.

[laplata]

Hey! Where are all the embedded media that are accompanying our troops to Africa to fight ebola?!?!

---

I like your thinking.

[Kartographer]

there are a few FReepers I would like to imbed with the troops.

[laplata]

I wouldn’t blame you one little bit.

Thanks again for all you do.

[greeneyes]

Only two patients? If so, we are all screwed if an outbreak hits here. Those countries should all be quarantined, and the borders shut.

No one in or out. If travel is allowed, then there should be a quarantine for 30 days before leaving and 30 days on arrival.