The University of Kansas Hospital said a person who came into the hospital with a high fever and other serious symptoms has been placed in isolation and is undergoing tests.
The patient had recently worked on a medical boat off the western coast of Africa, the region hit hard by Ebola. Officials said the patient is a medic who had been treating patients with a lot of different types of illnesses.
The hospital said that while doctors can't rule out the possibility of Ebola, the patient is at a low to moderate risk. Dr. Lee Norman said many other diseases fit the patient's symptoms.
The patient had been sick on the medical boat but showed signs of recovery after returning to the United States. On Sunday, the patient started to feel worse and came to the hospital.
"He just felt so wiped out that he decided to come in and be seen," Norman said. "Of course he is well informed. Plus he has significant weight loss."
Hospital staff met the patient wearing personal protection equipment and followed the hospital's plan for this type of situation.
"We put on impervious gowns so if there is any blood or fluids it would not get onto our clothes," Norman said.
.The patient took a commercial flight back to the United States and has felt sick for four to five days. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will work with health departments to make sure there is no current risk to the public
(CNN) -- A United Nations worker who was being treated for Ebola at a hospital in Germany has died.
"We can confirm that the U.N. worker being treated here died last night from the Ebola virus. He was of Sudanese nationality," a spokesman for the St. Georg clinic in Leipzig said Tuesday.
The man had contracted Ebola while working in Liberia, spokesman Constantin Sauff said. Liberia is one of the countries worst affected by the deadly virus, along with Sierra Leone and Guinea.
The hospital said in a statement last Thursday that he was being treated in a secure isolation ward and that its doctors and medical staff were "perfectly prepared" for the task.
...
(CNN) -- NBC's medical correspondent Dr. Nancy Snyderman has issued an apology after she reportedly violated the quarantine her team was placed in when their cameraman contracted Ebola.
NBC's Snyderman apologizes for violating quarantine - CNN.com
Snydermanand her team were under a voluntary 21 day quarantine but that didn't stop her from stepping out to a restaurant. Somebody snitched and she has publicly apologized.
Public Health officials have now put them on a mandatory 21 day quarantine.
Now she'll only get take out in the public interest.
Of course, I take no satisfaction from this terrible incident. I have been following this discussion but I haven't really had any additional facts to contribute. I do have some opinions though.Kudos to Irish1958 who posted that here a month ago and was ridiculed. I trust he takes no satisfaction at being corroborated but rather is saddened by the tragic news of transmission to a health care worker. Hopefully it is only one.
http://www.irishenvy.com/forums/lep...s-troops-fight-ebola-virus-5.html#post1353969
Just wondering how much more this is going to cost our government. I have a lot of opinions and questions but this is one of my concerns. Thoughts?
Jesse Jackson, Dallas lawmaker blame racism for Ebola patient's death - Washington Times
This is straight bull shit. The CDC says the know about this but they really don't know what they are dealing with. If so they would have been prepared for a possible outbreak.
Jesse is more of a shit starter then a helper.
This is an incredibly interesting dynamic. If what these folks have said is not true than it would be a historical first.
When a third of the population of Western Europe died in the middle ages due to bubonic plague, that death was centered among the poor in the tenements. Anyone care to look up the perspective of the relatively unaffected wealthy? I have. They considered it a gift from God!
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century typhoid was considered a disease of poverty. It was only when it hit the wealthy summer home communities that attention was given, Typhoid Mary was identified (as was the cause of the disease) and changes were made.
The only other option is when a disease stands in the way of economic progress. (Again for the wealthy.) Yellow fever was conquered so American Imperial interests could be served. It killed too many workers to be able to complete the canal through Central America to be left unchecked, as it had in the southeast and along the Gulf Coast for the entire previous history of America.
So it is just a fact. Poor people die. If Ebola started in the US, it would be like polio, or any number of other diseases. With its West African roots, well we don't scream till it washes up on our shores.
That's just the way it is.
This is an incredibly interesting dynamic. If what these folks have said is not true than it would be a historical first.
When a third of the population of Western Europe died in the middle ages due to bubonic plague, that death was centered among the poor in the tenements. Anyone care to look up the perspective of the relatively unaffected wealthy? I have. They considered it a gift from God!
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century typhoid was considered a disease of poverty. It was only when it hit the wealthy summer home communities that attention was given, Typhoid Mary was identified (as was the cause of the disease) and changes were made.
The only other option is when a disease stands in the way of economic progress. (Again for the wealthy.) Yellow fever was conquered so American Imperial interests could be served. It killed too many workers to be able to complete the canal through Central America to be left unchecked, as it had in the southeast and along the Gulf Coast for the entire previous history of America.
So it is just a fact. Poor people die. If Ebola started in the US, it would be like polio, or any number of other diseases. With its West African roots, well we don't scream till it washes up on our shores.
That's just the way it is.
Of course, I take no satisfaction from this terrible incident. I have been following this discussion but I haven't really had any additional facts to contribute. I do have some opinions though.
By law, the CDC has only an advisory capacity in this matter and is not even in charge in Dallas; an ex-lawyer (aka "the judge") is. Homeland security is responsible for "security" which would include enforcing quarantine, clean-up rules and so forth. The local health department is responsible for everything else.
We do have a number of extremely high tech units (I think five) in this country capable of handling this type of problem. I am at a loss as to why the Dallas hospital thought they could handle it, as they obviously couldn't.
As to containing Ebola: there are only a limited number of ways to combat an infectious disease, if we have no effective treatment available. Eliminate the vector: we can't since it is the humans who are the vector. Vaccinate the susceptible: we have no vaccine available. Quarantine the infectious and their contacts. That is it, "there ain't no more."
As noted in Dr. Sniderman's case, this to be effective MUST BE INFORCED and not be just a suggestion.
What would I do if I were dictator? Put the CDC in charge and restore their funding (note the 20% reduction since 2010) and give them the enforcement powers needed to do the job.
Make vaccine development and the drug industry a regulated utility so profit would not be the ONLY factor in developing and employing treatments. I have a bunch more ideas but that is enough (actually, too much) for now.
I can get on-board with the "disparate care" narrative, but I think the remainder stretches the history of public health a bit too far. We have plenty of "pauper's diseases" that we've developed fine treatments for and many others have a huge amount of funding dedicated to development of treatments. Actually, that's becoming even more true as drug companies realize they can leverage participation in the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program to force states to cover drugs that a private insurer might exclude or severely restrict (Sovaldi, the notoriously costly Hep C drug is the latest there). The Orphan Drug Act has probably helped in some cases as well, although that's basically totally random.
We knew what caused typhoid 30 years before Mary Mallon arrived on the scene and the vaccine pre-dates her by over a decade. She's infamous for being the first known asymptomatic carrier (and for what we all see as just a crazy disregard for public safety), but she was far from the inspiration for research into a cure. That's really down to the extreme longevity of typhoid in the historical record and to its dramatic effects on war (before the vaccine, typhoid was better at killing soldiers than soldiers were).
I think when you look at our disease research spending, there's also some evidence we're not simply ignoring these kind of diseases. Infectious disease research is second in funding behind only cancer. That's going to be overwhelmingly dedicated to HIV/AIDS research (which is dramatically more prevalent among impoverished populations), but also includes TB, Hep C, etc. Rare disease and emerging infectious disease research, combined, would be third and nearly equal to ID. That's going to include things like Shigellosis (huge cause of dysentery, virtually nonexistent in the US, completely nonexistent among the affluent) and West Nile as well as general tropical medicine research.
The Plague was an equal opportunity killer. If you got exposed you were likely to die. It had nothing to do with whtie privilege or the ability to afford medical care/insurance. Your wealth didn't matter and physicans remedies probably increased the probability of survival.
The rich died in cities and countrysides alike. Princess Joan the daughter of the King of England was in route to her royal wedding in Spain when she contracted the illness and died. Instead of a bond between England and Spain and resolution on the line of succession. The Plantagenants were weakened. Two rival Plantagenent Houses went to war over succession. In the end the Tudors supplanted both tof them. If the wealthy Princess Joan the paragon of white privilege hadn't gotten ill and died, Henry VII would not have been the first Tudor King of England and his son, Henry VIII wouldn't have established the Church of England.
The plague is a poor example of Jackson's point.
By the way, Nina Pham is not a symbol of white privilege either. A Vietnamese American she rose above her roots (the American Dream) and now is fighting for her life primarily because a guy quit his job, lied twice in airports to medical officials. And wasn't candid with his history in a Dallas Hospital. If he doesn't get on the plane in Monrovia or Brussels only Res Life Hero would have heard of Nina.
Jesse will find a way to squeeze some green mail out of this. That's his M.O.
This is clearly nowhere near under control. How do they let one of the healthcare workers fly on a plane during the incubation period after another one has already contracted ebola and they are not sure how? The CDC/govt has still not stopped incoming flights from West Africa. Healthcare workers are contracting the disease and then jumping on flights. The Dallas ebola patient sat in the ER for hours before he was isolated. Not looking pretty at this point.
This is clearly nowhere near under control. How do they let one of the healthcare workers fly on a plane during the incubation period after another one has already contracted ebola and they are not sure how? The CDC/govt has still not stopped incoming flights from West Africa. Healthcare workers are contracting the disease and then jumping on flights. The Dallas ebola patient sat in the ER for hours before he was isolated. Not looking pretty at this point.
For the inbound flights: The State Department said last week that they analyze the cost/benefits of blocking these flights and that it is too costly to do so at this time.
I find it particularly reassuring that the CDC is asking the 132 passengers that were on Frontier Airlines flight 1143 Cleveland to Dallas/Fort Worth on Oct. 13 to call 1-800-CDC-INFO to begin monitoring.
For the inbound flights: The State Department said last week that they analyze the cost/benefits of blocking these flights and that it is too costly to do so at this time.
I find it particularly reassuring that the CDC is asking the 132 passengers that were on Frontier Airlines flight 1143 Cleveland to Dallas/Fort Worth on Oct. 13 to call 1-800-CDC-INFO to begin monitoring.
CDC has no legal authority to do anything other than advise and offer suggestions. There are two agencies who do have authority: homeland security and the local health department and by extension, the Texas state health authority. The Ebola local "task force" is headed by a judge not a medical person.This is clearly nowhere near under control. How do they let one of the healthcare workers fly on a plane during the incubation period after another one has already contracted ebola and they are not sure how? The CDC/govt has still not stopped incoming flights from West Africa. Healthcare workers are contracting the disease and then jumping on flights. The Dallas ebola patient sat in the ER for hours before he was isolated. Not looking pretty at this point.
you just can't make this shit up:
"CBS News Medical Correspondent Dr. John LaPook reports that Vinson called the CDC several times before boarding the plane concerned about her fever."
CDC: Ebola Patient Traveled By Air With “Low-Grade” Fever « CBS Dallas / Fort Worth