While the C.D.C. asserts that U.S. Hospitals are well prepared for any cases of Ebola,
Julie Steenhuysen writes that
U.S. Nurses Say They Are Unprepared To Handle Ebola Patients. This articles reports many who are asking for more training, not just for nurses, but X-ray technicians, janitorial staff, assistants and many who have been left out of some standard training.
Micker Samios is a triage nurse in emergency room of the Medstar Washington Hospital Center who points to the Texas Presbyterian Health case in Dallas Texas, as an example of a hospital whose leaders thought they were ready when they really were not.
"In addition to not being prepared, there was a flaw in diagnostics as well as communication," Samios said. "A lot of staff feel they aren't adequately trained," said Samios, whose job is to greet patients in the emergency department and do an initial assessment of their condition." ... "When an Ebola patient is admitted or goes to the intensive care unit, those nurses, those tech service associates are not trained," she said. "The X-ray tech who comes into the room to do the portable chest X-ray is not trained. The transporter who pushes the stretcher is not trained." ...
A survey by National Nurses United of some 400 nurses in more than 200 hospitals in 25 states found that more than half (60 percent) said their hospital is not prepared to handle patients with Ebola, and more than 80 percent said their hospital has not communicated to them any policy regarding potential admission of patients infected by Ebola.
"If there are protocols in place, the nurses are not hearing them and the nurses are the ones who are exposed," said RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United, which serves as both a union and a professional association for U.S. nurses.
Julie Steenhuysen's well written article is based on her original research and includes discussion of extra care needed in removing gloves and Personal Protective Equipment, PPE, and logistic dilemmas often not anticipated in some hospitals, for example what if a patient in a special Ebola wing needs ICU treatment, and what if an infected patient throw up in the elevator.
Health care professionals may find this article of extra interest.
Meanwhile a NBC freelance photographer in Western Africa has been diagnosed with Ebola.
CNN is reporting live the arrival of the hazardous waste removal company at the apartment of the partner of Eric Thomas Duncan, in Dallas Texas, the first patient diagnosed with Ebola in the United States.
One interesting set of comments to help us keep our perspective was presented last night on CNN. One expert pointed out that every year around 25,000 people die in the U.S. from influenza, and complications, and said if you are worried about viruses please make sure you are vaccinated.
Also, antibiotic resistant bacteria kill 23,000 Americans per year.
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are a huge problem, one that sickens 2 million and kills more than 23,000 people in the United States each year. We hear horror stories about otherwise healthy children and young adults struck with deadly infections. Or stories of hospital outbreaks due to killer “superbugs.”
While I don't want to distract folks from the breaking news about Ebola The Telegraph has an interesting article in entitled,
Five Diseases Far Deadlier than Ebola Found in the U.S. Andrew Marszal notes that while this strain of Ebola seems to have a mortality rate of 55% there are at least five current diseases with higher mortalities.
Just to give you a few snippets of Marszai's dreadful overview.
Amoebic meningoencephalitis: A rare but highly lethal disease which sees the nervous system infected by a type of amoeba which can be found in warm, stagnant freshwater including swimming pools and lakes. ... Only five people have ever survived the disease, representing a 97 per cent fatality rate. ... Infection can occur if contaminated water enters deep into the sinus cavities.
Rabies is still present in all parts of the world except for Japan, parts of Western Europe and Australasia, and Antarctica, killing 55,000 annually. Spread by bites or scratches from infected animals, the disease in nearly always fatal once symptoms develop, typically one to three months after infection.
We all remember this from school history lessons – the 14th-century Black Plague was just one of three global pandemics in history, which have collectively killed up to 200 million people. ... But it is still around, even in developed countries - from 1990-2005, a total of 107 cases of plague were reported in the United States. ... Mortality from pneumonic plague approaches 100 per cent when untreated, while some strains of bubonic plague can be as high as 70 per cent.
Marszai continues with a review of the stats for anthrax and HIV, which has infected 75 million people and killed 36 since its first known occurrence in 1920 in Kinshasa. So I looked this up and found Ian Sample of the science editor of The Guardian, informs us of a breakthrough in understanding the origins of the HIV virus. HIV pandemic originated in Kinshasa in the 1920s, say scientists
An international team of scientists led by the universities of Oxford in Britain and Leuven in Belgium reconstructed the history of the HIV pandemic using historical records and DNA samples of the virus dating back to the late 1950s. The DNA allowed them to draw up a family tree of the virus that traced its ancestry through time and space. Using statistical models they could push farther back than the 1950s and locate the origin of the pandemic in 1920s Kinshasa. ...
“Parts of the story can only be suggestive. Without a time machine it’s very difficult to prove causality. But we can be fairly sure we have the time and place where this happened,” Pybus said. “It seems a combination of factors in Kinshasa in the early 20th century created a perfect storm for the emergence of HIV, leading to a generalised epidemic with unstoppable momentum that unrolled across sub-Saharan Africa.”
Different strains of HIV have almost certainly jumped from apes to humans – through hunting or handling bushmeat – scores of times throughout history. Only a dozen or so incidents have left their traces in the DNA of HIV strains around today. Some outbreaks infected hundreds of thousands of people in Africa but went no further. Only one, known as HIV-1 group M, went pandemic.
Sorry, I guess I've become carried away here. What is it about viral contagion that creates such an infectious fascination?
Anyhow, my hope is these additional articles provide some bigger picture perspective. While CNN has devoted about half of todays programing to the Ebola situation in Dallas Texas, the "good news" is a quick review of the sea of viruses and bacterial contagious pathogens we live in daily indicate you are far more likely to die of one of these other diseases.
Cue Twilight Zone music outro: Too dee too doo, too dee too doo.