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Ebola: It's In The US Now

diamondlil said:
Probably one of the best things about ebola, IMO, is that it is so virulent that it won't just sit as a quiet pool of infectious people though. Unlike reistant TB etc.
Click to expand...

That could possibly change as Ebola gets more comfortable in this new host it has occupied. It is not in it's best long term interests to kill us off so quickly. From what I understand, it has already been rolling the dice quite a bit...

Since Ebola can be transmitted via sperm, you have to wonder what might be going on in there with the changes being made. Kind of scary to think that a pandemic of Ebola would not only be mutating itself, but also mutating us as well. -> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/virus-genes-human-genome/
 
vetusvates said:
Yes...I am familiar with dialysis procedurally, as well as renal function/dysfunction...but regarding specifically Ebola Tom's dialysis...

(Note, I am a healthcare worker, so am well aware of bacteria, viruses, mycobacterium, etc., protocols and risks, etc., etc.
My sister is an RN, as well as many friends, and many friends in other degreed hospital careers. Including physicians.
So, many of my questions are hypothetical or rhetorical, not a plea for remediation on health protocols or Ebola virulence.)

Will they incinerate this dialysis closed system...

Or...use it over and over again on the next dialysis patient(s) in line...???...(yes I know they "clean" them between patients).
Click to expand...

To expound, having almost wasted the chance to _fully_ brag on my truly humble, and level-headed sister,...let me clarify that she has a traditional four-year Bachelor of Science degree in Social Work,
a Master of Science degree in Social Work, and a traditional four-year Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing.
I am so proud of her and love her very much, degrees or no degrees...much deeper. She is truly a beautiful person inside and out.
She has even herped with me, and for me in my absence.
She memorized the specs and location of a rather rare and secretive species, many years ago, that I was able to come home and, yes, successfully catch.

ashleynicole said:
He was probably on CRRT at the end... continual renal replacement therapy. I know they have specific disposal for ebola... not sure about the reusable equipment and machines. Some stuff can be autoclaved I'm sure. Yes I'm a registered nurse as well I work all over the hospital critical care but primarily ER/ICU.
Click to expand...

I also want to publicly and effusively apologize, ashleynicole, for having, from posts elsewhere (link to the B.S. Zoology degree thread), evidently failed to interpret that you were an R.N., in the traditional since.
Thank you for clarifying my vagueness with preciseness.

__________________________________

What I depicted in bold blue, from your own post, not being an R.N./B.S.N. myself, was precisely my concern as well, regarding the 'dialysis' (the word they used) to which the news and hospital articles were referring.


__________________________________
 
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Nanci said:
And now a second nurse in Dallas has tested positive. The nurses say conditions were sloppy and they had no protocol or training. Nice.

Link to story about nurses, before they revealed a second nurse had contracted ebola.
Click to expand...

Excellent link, Nanci.
Thank goodness the nurses have heroically spoken out in a manner to not allow the CDC to hang them out to dry.
 
Nancy that article kinda expresses how all nurses are feeling right now. Love how they mention that "next time" the CDC will send in a team... why didn't they send in a team to begin with?!?!
 
Nothing about that article surprises me at all. again the failings of an organisation are shifted to try to blame individual workers 'and lessons have been learnt'
 
New England Journal of Medicine
Demographic Characteristics and Signs and Symptoms in Confirmed and Probable Ebola Case Patients with a Definitive Clinical Outcome in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone

% who did not display symptoms

Fever‡ 12.9%

Vomiting 32.4%

Diarrhea 34.4%

‡ Fever was defined as a body temperature above 38°C/100.1°F
​
Look at those numbers...

  • 12.9% of people would NEVER show up in one of the CDC's tests, because no fever.
  • 32.4% will not throw up, another tell tale sign to watch for according to most experts.
 
Woman Saves Three Relatives Herself

(CNN) -- It can be exhausting nursing a child through a nasty bout with the flu, so imagine how 22-year-old Fatu Kekula felt nursing her entire family through Ebola.
Her father. Her mother. Her sister. Her cousin. Fatu took care of them all, single-handedly feeding them, cleaning them and giving them medications.
And she did so with remarkable success. Three out of her four patients survived. That's a 25% death rate -- considerably better than the estimated Ebola death rate of 70%.


Fatu stayed healthy, which is noteworthy considering that more than 300 health care workers have become infected with Ebola, and she didn't even have personal protection equipment -- those white space suits and goggles used in Ebola treatment units.


Instead Fatu, who's in her final year of nursing school, invented her own equipment. International aid workers heard about Fatu's "trash bag method" and are now teaching it to other West Africans who can't get into hospitals and don't have protective gear of their own.
 
Nanci said:
Woman Saves Three Relatives Herself

(CNN) -- It can be exhausting nursing a child through a nasty bout with the flu, so imagine how 22-year-old Fatu Kekula felt nursing her entire family through Ebola.
Her father. Her mother. Her sister. Her cousin. Fatu took care of them all, single-handedly feeding them, cleaning them and giving them medications.
And she did so with remarkable success. Three out of her four patients survived. That's a 25% death rate -- considerably better than the estimated Ebola death rate of 70%.


Fatu stayed healthy, which is noteworthy considering that more than 300 health care workers have become infected with Ebola, and she didn't even have personal protection equipment -- those white space suits and goggles used in Ebola treatment units.


Instead Fatu, who's in her final year of nursing school, invented her own equipment. International aid workers heard about Fatu's "trash bag method" and are now teaching it to other West Africans who can't get into hospitals and don't have protective gear of their own.
Click to expand...

Just wow! What an incredible story
 
Speaking of the hospital in dallas...

"For their necks, nurses had to use medical tape, that is not impermeable and has permeable seams, to wrap around their necks in order to protect themselves, and had to put on the tape and take it off on their own," the statement reads.

Can you even imagine???
 
Nanci said:
Speaking of the hospital in dallas...

"For their necks, nurses had to use medical tape, that is not impermeable and has permeable seams, to wrap around their necks in order to protect themselves, and had to put on the tape and take it off on their own," the statement reads.

Can you even imagine???
Click to expand...

Is that the stuff that takes all hair and bits of skin along with it when the nurse rips it off of your body? :eek1:
 
So, someone please correct me if I'm wrong. I read the stats the other day and cannot now find them.
Of the concrete places that had true Ebola capable (or similar contagion) beds.
Emory, Bethesda, Omaha, Missoula (Montana), and somewhere else _maybe_.....can't remember.
All 4 (or 5) hospitals of which had/have 1 to 2 to 3 to 4 eligible beds. For perfect setup for Ebola-like patient(s).
 
Rich Z said:
COMMENTARY: Health workers need optimal respiratory protection for Ebola
Click to expand...

Excellent link, Rich.

We believe there is scientific and epidemiologic evidence that Ebola virus has the potential to be transmitted via infectious aerosol particles both near and at a distance from infected patients, which means that healthcare workers should be wearing respirators, not facemasks.1

.....

There has been a lot of on-line and published controversy about whether Ebola virus can be transmitted via aerosols. Most scientific and medical personnel, along with public health organizations, have been unequivocal in their statements that Ebola can be transmitted only by direct contact with virus-laden fluids2,3 and that the only modes of transmission we should be concerned with are those termed "droplet" and "contact."

These statements are based on two lines of reasoning. The first is that no one located at a distance from an infected individual has contracted the disease, or the converse, every person infected has had (or must have had) "direct" contact with the body fluids of an infected person.

This reflects an incorrect and outmoded understanding of infectious aerosols, which has been institutionalized in policies, language, culture, and approaches to infection control. We will address this below. Briefly, however, the important points are that virus-laden bodily fluids may be aerosolized and inhaled while a person is in proximity to an infectious person and that a wide range of particle sizes can be inhaled and deposited throughout the respiratory tract.

.....

It's time to abandon the old paradigm of three mutually exclusive transmission routes for a new one that considers the full range of particle sizes both near and far from a source. In addition, we need to factor in other important features of infectivity, such as the ability of a pathogen to remain viable in air at room temperature and humidity and the likelihood that systemic disease can result from deposition of infectious particles in the respiratory system or their transfer to the gastrointestinal tract.

We recommend using "aerosol transmissible" rather than the outmoded terms "droplet" or "airborne" to describe pathogens that can transmit disease via infectious particles suspended in air.

.....
Click to expand...
 
I personally wore N-95 masks in any room of any patient that I wasn't sure what they had....if they came in with fever, vomitting or cough I wore the N-95..not a regular mask. I could be sure that it would protect me from most anything. From what I understand, these medical personelle are wearing hazmat type suits...should be effective for something like Ebola....
 
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