Posted on 10/13/2014 8:18:43 AM PDT by Rockitz
How did it happen?
That’s the big question as U.S. health officials investigate the case of a Dallas health worker who treated an Ebola patient and ended up with the disease herself.
These are professionals and this is the United States, where the best conditions and protective gear are available, unlike in West Africa, where the Ebola epidemic is raging in much poorer conditions.
The health worker wore protective gear while having extensive contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who died Wednesday of Ebola at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.
Officials say she has not been able to pinpoint any breach in infection control protocols, although there apparently was a breach, they say.
Second Ebola Case
Experience shows that health workers can safely care for Ebola patients, “but we also know that it’s hard and that even a single breach can result in contamination,” Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
The situation also raises fresh concerns about whether any U.S. hospital can safely handle Ebola patients, as health officials have insisted is possible.
“A breach in protocol could be anything from not taking your gloves off the right way to taking a dialysis catheter out of a dialysis patient and not disposing of it the right way,” explains Dr. Darrin D’Agostino, Chair of Internal Medicine UNT.
...
Q: How else could infection have happened?
A: Some of the garb the health worker takes off might brush against a surface and contaminate it. New data suggest that even tiny droplets of a patient’s body fluids can contain the virus, Maki said.
...
(Excerpt) Read more at dfw.cbslocal.com ...
None of the staff were wearing the CDC minimum protection untill a positive test came back for ebola. They were at a lower level of protection up till that point
Sorry...meant to link ‘my’ comment. Thought it was still in my clipboard
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3214463/posts?page=49#49
So ...how do they de-contaminate the dialysis machine....?
“People don’t get it yet: This is one hundred times worse than AIDS. People should be furious about this.”
They SHOULD be, but the primary news sources for the low-info’s, The Daily Show and the Late-Night comics continue to mock anyone that shows concern, to prevent any attachment of blame to Obama and the Dems.
Did anyone watch “Outbreak”? CDC apparently doesn’t know as much as it thinks it does. Also there is a headline today the NIH guys blames the government for lack of funding.
So — the CDC director was “arguing from ignorance” when he said that there was a breach of procedure.
He doesn’t know that there was a breach of protocols, he’s just inferring “there must have been”, and inferring incorrectly because he doesn’t know what the real route of the nurse’s infection.
And so the CDC director blames the nurse, in effect, and in so doing also lies to the American people, by implying that he “knows” that the protocols are adequate and any infection must have been caused by not following them.
Tell me, on that basis, why a nurse would wish to risk her life by performing the nursing services she did supply?
By the way, did the nurse volunteer? Or was she directed by her superiors to perform the risky services?
Maybe the object is to make it airborne in the interest of Science $$$$.
I figured out that the virus is spread by exhaled breath. It was obvious to me two weeks ago. It’s spread in the air around a patient. Airborne. They don’t want us to panic.
My guess is that she contracted it because she does not support Amnesty or Common Sense gun control, and generally does not work with President Obama on anything.
No. The most recent update at http://www.who.int/csr/disease/ebola/situation-reports/en/ shows that 416 health care workers in Africa and now one in Spain and one in the United States have failed in terms of their own safely (233 fatal) when taking care of Ebola patients. Health workers cannot reliably take care of Ebola patients safely under current protocols. A professional would question his own protocols, and revise those procedures to account for human error or training deficiencies, while a politician would blame the victims who failed to perfectly comply with protocols that leave no margin for error. This CDC director is an Obama appointee and obviously the worst form of politician.
This was one of the first stories that gave me concern about transmission via the aerosol of a sneeze.
One theory mentioned on FR was that the protection garments are really an incubator for the virus. They thrive with the higher temps and humidity. This could be the reason that many unprotected care givers have survived in Liberia while health care workers have died. One case mentioned was of a women who nursed four members of her family..three survived and she didn’t catch the disease.
Either the nurse didn’t follow protocol...or improper/defective equipment/supplies were used (a tear in a gown or the wrong disinfectant was used,for example)...or there’s something we don’t know about the virus and its transmission.
So they should be wearing respirators instead of masks?
I'm think we know, it's just not being broadcast to avoid panic and since everything is political with Obama, it's not being broadcast to avoid a clean sweep of democrats from congress. Just another case of extreme incompetence by this administration.
Prior to Duncan’s diagnosis, he was treated in the ER as any other patient, using hospital equipment in standard format.
All patients visiting that hospital since that first visit, and all hospital staff who came into contact with any surface which was handled directly or indirectly could have been placed in harms way. This nurse could have simply brushed against a contaminated cart, wall, door, tissue box . ..anything in the hospital which may have been contaminated over the course of time since Duncan first sought medical care - before she even put on protective gear.
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