Hawaii now

Patient in isolation at Queen’s Medical Center, officials say Ebola a possibility

The Department of Health has confirmed a patient is currently in isolation and undergoing testing in Honolulu.

The Hawaii Nurses Association said the person is being treated at The Queen’s Medical Center.

Officials told KHON2 Ebola is a possibility, however the patient has yet to be specifically tested for the virus.

“We are early in the investigation of a patient — very, very early — who we’re investigating that might have Ebola,” said Dr. Melissa Viray, deputy state epidemiologist. “It’s very possible that they do and they have Ebola. I think it’s also more likely that they have another condition that presents with similar symptoms.”

Dr. Viray said the patient could have a number of illnesses including Ebola, flu, malaria and typhoid.

Dr. Viray wouldn’t confirm any details about the patient, symptoms, or if the person had recently traveled to West Africa. But she did say red flags for Ebola include fever and recent travel to that area.

“Why is this person being isolated?” KHON2 asked.

“What we’ve asked the hospitals to tell us about is anyone with a travel history, and anyone with a fever. And when those things come together, we’ve asked them to be very careful and in an abundance of caution while you’re working, for whatever else might be going on, also make sure you isolate against Ebola, just in case,” she said.

“So it sounds like this person does have a fever and recently traveled to West Africa,” KHON2 asked.

“Again, I can’t be the one to confirm that,” Dr. Viray said.

The patient is currently being kept in a regular room, and anyone who goes in or out must wear protective gear, officials said.

“They’re monitoring who goes in and out of that room, and making sure that everybody is as safe as possible, while the patient is being evaluated for Ebola and what other conditions that patient might have,” Dr. Viray said.

“Should the public concerned?” KHON2 asked.

“No, absolutely not. Like I said, this is a possible case we’re investigating. We don’t know if this is Ebola or a number of other conditions,” she said.

Health officials say it’s too early to say if the person will be tested for Ebola.

There are 1,400 nurses assigned to work at The Queen’s Medical Center. The hospital has assured them that procedures are in place to protect them while the patient is being monitored.

A message sent to all employees Wednesday said that the hospital is “evaluating a patient for possible symptoms that may be consistent with Ebola.”

The union that represents the nurses was tipped off about the message Wednesday afternoon.

Joan Craft, president of the Hawaii Nurses Association, immediately contacted the hospital for assurance that safety procedures are in place to protect her members.

“Blood and fluid procedures are safe, but there are a lot of contagious things you can come in contact with,” she told KHON2. “Ebola is very frightening, but procedures are safe, and we just want to make sure everyone knows that.”

The HNA also wanted to make sure that if someone is pregnant or otherwise uncomfortable dealing with the patient, that he or she does not have to be involved in the monitoring of the patient.

Experts gave us that reassurance last month and said then that unless you traveled to an area that was experiencing an outbreak, the risk of contracting Ebola is very low.

There is no room designed specifically for Ebola at The Queen’s Medical Center, but the hospital says it is equipped to deal with the virus if needed.

“If someone showed up in the ER with suspected Ebola symptoms, they would immediately be placed in an isolation room,” Erlaine Bello, The Queen’s Medical Center infectious disease specialist, previously told KHON2. “The door would be closed at all times. There would be a facilities log kept of everyone who entered the room and anyone who entered the room at a minimum would be wearing gloves, eye protection, goggles and a mask, and impermeable gown.”

Dr. Bello said major hospitals and the health department have a good relationship with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and that the state itself has the resources and the expertise to handle a case of Ebola if it were to appear here in the islands.

http://khon2.com/201.....ssibility/

Springfield doctor says 'CDC is lying' about Ebola virus

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -
A physician from Springfield donned a protective suit and cleared security in the busy Atlanta airport on Thursday morning to protest the Centers for Disease Control. Dr. Gil Mobley called the agency grossly incompetent in handling the Ebola crisis.

Mobley returned on Thursday to his clinic in Springfield, via Atlanta's busy airport, where he attracted considerable attention.

"It was like a small parade being followed by security, TSA, airport officials and everything," Mobley said.

Mobley believes the federal government is not being truthful about Ebola. Call it a stunt, or not, the national media quickly picked up his message to the CDC.

"Either they're lying or they're grossly incompetent. Anybody can connect the dots and see that this is going to consume all third world countries, clusters are going to overwhelm our ability, and then we have big problems," Mobley said.

CDC Director Tom Frieden said Wednesday, "There are core tried-and-true public health interventions that stop it (Ebola)."

With the first U.S. case of Ebola diagnosed this week, the Centers for Disease Control says it can be contained.

"The bottom line here is that I have no doubt that we will control this importation of this case of ebola so it does not spread widely in this country," said Frieden.

Mobley says there aren't controls in place to stop the spread.

"I came through customs and immigration at the busiest airport in the world last night. They didn't ask me where I'd been. They didn't thermo-scan me. They didn't ask me whether I'd been sick. They asked me if I had tobacco and alcohol, and that was it. Where's the screening? This is irresponsible," Mobley said, after arriving in Springfield.

He's calling for protocols and procedures now, not only at airports, but hospitals and clinics, or he believes Ebola will run rampant.

"I've been following epidemics and pandemics all my life," Mobley said. "My admonishment, my suggestion, my plea: start the protocols and plans now!"

Mobley says he notified Atlanta airport officials of his plans to wear the protective suit a day ahead of time, but he says Delta still confiscated the suit after he had taken if off and put it away, right before takeoff.

http://www.ky3.com/n.....8_28378320

well I feel better now

Airborne transmission of Ebola unlikely, monkey study shows

Monkeys do not pass Ebola to one another through the air, researchers report. The result confirms observations of human outbreaks: Infection with the deadly virus requires contact with bodily fluids.

The study follows up on a 2012 report that raised concerns Ebola might be able to spread by air (SN: 12/15/12, p. 12). That study, led by infectious disease researcher Gary Kobinger of the Public Health Agency of Canada, found that macaques contracted Ebola when housed in cages near a pen containing piglets infected with Ebola. The animals never touched. The researchers said the finding meant that the virus probably floated to the monkeys’ cages as a fine airborne spray of particles shed by the pigs.

Pigs seem to give off more aerosolized viral particles than other species, says Derek Gatherer, a viral evolutionary biologist at Lancaster University in England. “If it’s going to spread by aerosols, then pigs are the species to do it,” he says.

But he doesn’t think the researchers definitively demonstrated airborne transmission of the Ebola virus. Virus-laden droplets of water could have splashed from the pig pen to the macaque cages when the researchers washed the pig enclosure, he says.

Pigs probably aren’t a source of Ebola outbreaks. Few have even been found to carry Ebola. Pigs in the Philippines have been found to carry Reston ebolavirus, a species of Ebola that does not cause disease in people. No African pigs are known to be infected with Zaire ebolavirus, the cause of the current epidemic.

Even if pigs can transmit the virus by air, they may be unique in the ability. The new study, published July 25 in Scientific Reports by Kobinger and a different group of collaborators, found no evidence that sick macaques could give the virus to healthy monkeys through airborne particles.

The researchers placed two rhesus macaques infected with Zaire ebolavirus in cages near two uninfected cynomolgus macaques. The animals couldn’t touch, but no special shielding protected the uninfected monkeys. The infected monkeys died after six days. Meanwhile, the cynomolgus macaques remained free of Ebola for the entire 28 days of the experiment, well beyond the six to 16 days it takes for symptoms to appear after catching Ebola.

Since December 2013, this largest ever outbreak of Ebola has killed at least 932 people — more than half of the 1,711 people infected — in the West African nations of Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. Those infected include two American health care workers who treated people with the deadly disease. The two sick Americans, Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol, have been transferred to Atlanta for treatment in an isolation facility at Emory University Hospital.

Fabian Leendertz, an epidemiologist and disease ecologist at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, says that the outbreak is spreading by human-to-human contact. The people who are dying are mostly women who care for the sick, their children and people who touch dead bodies during funeral rituals, he says. Health care workers are also at risk.

But Ebola is not nearly as easily transmitted as many people assume, he says. Even if an infected person were to hop on a plane and fly to the United States, Europe, or elsewhere, Leendertz says, tight health care measures would ensure that Ebola “will never get far.” 

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/airborne-transmission-ebola-unlikely-monkey-study-shows