14 October 2014 - Ebola threat (US)
U.S. hospitals not prepared for Ebola threat
RoseAnn DeMoro (The Washington Post)
With reports that a nurse who treated Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan in Dallas has been infected, one thing urgently needs to be made clear: Our hospitals are not prepared to confront the deadly virus.
It is long past time to stop relying on a business-as-usual approach to a virus that has killed thousands in West Africa and has such a frighteningly high mortality rate. There is no margin for error. That means there can be no standard short of optimal in the protective equipment, such as hazmat suits, given to nurses and others who are the first to engage patients with Ebola-like symptoms. All nurses must have access to the same state-of-the-art equipment used by Emory University Hospital staff when they transported Ebola patients from Africa, but too many hospitals are trying to get by on the cheap.
In addition, hospitals and other frontline providers should immediately conduct hands-on training and drills so that personnel can practice, in teams, vital safety procedures such as the proper way to put on and remove protective equipment. Hospitals must also maintain properly equipped isolation rooms to ensure the safety of patients, visitors and staff and harden their procedures for disposal of medical waste and linens.
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CDC
Staff (The Chicago Tribune)
Some healthcare experts are bristling at the assertion by a top U.S. health official that a "protocol breach" caused a Dallas nurse to be infected with Ebola while caring for a dying patient, saying the case instead shows how far the nation's hospitals are from adequately training staff to deal with the deadly virus.
Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, made the declaration Sunday at a news conference and called for an investigation into how the unidentified nurse became infected while caring for Liberian national Thomas Eric Duncan, the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the United States. Duncan died last week at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.
Healthcare and infection control experts said that hospital staff need to be coached through the stages of treating an Ebola patient, making sure they have the right safety equipment and know how to use it properly to prevent infection.
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Treatment
John Bacon and Marjorie Owens (USA Today)
Health officials scrambled to learn how a Dallas health care worker caught Ebola at a Texas hospital where she had cared for a man who died from the deadly virus.
The woman was identified Monday as nurse Nina Pham, her family confirmed.
Pham, 26, became infected while treating Thomas Eric Duncan, the first Ebola patient to die in the USA. Pham, who graduated from Texas Christian University's nursing program in 2010, is the first person known to contract the disease in the USA.
By evening, she had received a transfusion of plasma from Kent Brantly, a Texas physician who survived the virus, according to her pastor and the nonprofit medical mission group Samaritan's Purse, Associated Press reported.
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Military
Annabel Grossman (The Daily Mail)
At a military base in Kentucky, soldiers are seen donning protective suits, learning how to correctly fit masks and carefully passing through decontamination stations.
The troops are just some of the 150 soldiers receiving intense safety training at Fort Campbell ahead of their deployment to Liberia, as part of the global fight against the spread of Ebola.
Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division took part in a course with instructors from the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.
It is thought that with the right training and precautions, the risk of infection for soldiers earmarked for the battle against the deadly virus is low.
But the soldiers' families are still desperate to know how the military can keep their loved ones safe from the epidemic - a new addition to the Army's long list of threats.
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14 October 2014 - Ebola threat (US), La Clé des Langues [en ligne], Lyon, ENS de LYON/DGESCO (ISSN 2107-7029), octobre 2014. Consulté le 30/12/2024. URL: https://cle.ens-lyon.fr/anglais/key-story/archives-revue-de-presse-2014/14-october-2014-ebola-threat-us-