Emory University Hospital in Atlanta said Thursday it was preparing a special isolation unit to receive a patient with Ebola disease “within the next several days”.
“We do not know at this time when the patient will arrive,” Emory said in a statement. The university also did not say whether the patient was one of two Americans battling Ebola infection in Liberia ”“ charity workers Nancy Writebol and Dr. Kent Brantly.
“Emory University Hospital has a specially built isolation unit set up in collaboration with the CDC to treat patients who are exposed to certain serious infectious diseases,” the hospital said. “It is physically separate from other patient areas and has unique equipment and infrastructure that provide an extraordinarily high level of clinical isolation. It is one of only four such facilities in the country.”
This strikes me as a particularly bad idea.
Sure…they can keep the virus contained…sure.
I’m praying the evacuations of Dr. Kent Brantley and Nancy Writebol will go smoothly and that they will fully recover, and that there will be no unexpected means of contamination or spread of the virus..
Ralph, I understand your concerns, but I think there are reasons this could be a good thing. Not only does it provide better care for two missionaries who have been on the front lines of the fight against Ebola, willing to sacrifce their lives to save others, it also gives more US medical personnel (doctors and researchers) access to the disease first hand – helping them know how to recognize it, test for it, treat it, and hopefully find a cure for it.
It’s not a bad thing to test the system for disease containment. I know this is an incredibly deadly disease and nothing to play around with, but until you’re actually in a real world situation and activating these kinds of contingency plans and using these isolation units, you can’t know the weak links in your system. By learning how to safely transport and isolate two gravely ill and highly contagious individuals, it could be good preparation for some kind of larger outbreak of a deadly disease.
But yes, it would be very wise of us all to pray for safety and the non-transmission of the disease.
I can understand the concerns Ralph and many other commenters around the internet have expressed. [url=http://legalinsurrection.com/2014/08/you-have-nothing-to-fear-from-ebola-but-fear-itself/]Here[/url] is a post by a health-care professional with experience in the field of blood-borne pathogens who had previously toured the Emory isolation facility and describes the extreme measures in place there to prevent the infection from spreading, surely far more extensive than what was available to Samaritan’s Purse in Liberia, where this doctor and nurse were infected. Also, they may be working on developing a treatment based on blood from survivors. In that sense, since this doctor and nurse are still living, and if they can be saved, they can give invaluable assistance to treatment research. The doctor was reportedly given a whole-blood transfusion from a 14-year-old boy whom he had treated and who survived. The doctor walked into the hospital in Atlanta.
Prayer is called for.
I’ve been away for a few days, and I know this thread is now off the main page, but it’s encouraging to see the improvement of Dr. Brantly and Nancy Writebol.
However… in Africa, the situation is now getting MUCH worse, with the virus now on the loose in Lagos, Nigeria. Terrifying. An incredibly densely packed mega-city, and one with connections all over the world… much less isolated than the other African cities where the virus is spreading [ Conakry (the capital of Guinea), Monrovia (Capital of Liberia), and Freetown (capital of Sierra Leone).] Truly, the news of Ebola having infected people in Lagos is a worst-case scenario, and I can understand why the WHO is holding emergency meetings. This will get much worse. I can only pray the US will not lose interest once the stories of Dr. Brantly and Nancy Writebol are off the front pages.