Ebola at Emery - (Aug/08/2014 )
pito on Wed Aug 13 08:44:51 2014 said:
Adriana Reis on Wed Aug 13 08:26:54 2014 said:
Yeah its ok, they certainly are different!
I used to give lectures on bats to people... like to crush the myths that seem to exist...
unfortunately a disease like this might influence more people to destroy them...
has anyone ever heard of a filovirus caught in bats in spain?
http://www.plospathogens.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.ppat.1002304
so you are a bat expert?
And I guess its not just with bats, it with many animals that are often misunderstood.
I guess its not that rare to find a filovirus in a bat, even in europe.
not sure you can call me expert, but Im a biologist with a microbiology degree. i studied bats a lot and I love bats. but loved microbiology more! =)
What did I say...?
One of the nurses who attended the second missionary was infected...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/10/06/spanish-health-care-worker-contracts-ebola-in-first-transmission-case-outside-of-africa/
El Crazy Xabi on Mon Aug 11 04:40:32 2014 said:
pito on Sun Aug 10 15:06:19 2014 said:
Phil Geis on Sun Aug 10 14:01:39 2014 said:
The primary concern should be public health, not that the 2 ere US citizens somehow owed care back here. The overall effort bring them back was probably of very low risk, tho' quite expensive. I'm sure the Emery facilities have been established and validated to function as expected but doubt the transportation was validated.
As to Pito's observation of US vs. European (Spanish) attitude re. repatriation, I don;t think there was anger in US as much as concern prob at a higher level of worry from recent failures at CDC in containment and control (smallpox, anthrax). If the 2 were being brought to Spain, their perspective may have been different.
But they did bring a patient with ebola back to spain and yet the public was very much pro the evacuation to spain.
There was not as much as "upset" as in the usa.
The priest brought back to Spain was for political reasons (influence of the church and the political party in the power). Amongst my contacts, at least, there was nobody supporting such evacuation for several reasons (by the way I'm Spanish):
- The hospital planning to receive him was nearly emptied of resources during the last year due budget cuts, with no even ICU.
- The hospital was evacuated in few hours with no real emergency plan
- Personnel was instructed in a couple of hours.
- Decision was not medical. Despite of other Spanish political matters, the priest was working for an organisation that makes 25 million euros/year but the cost of repatriation was spent by the Spanish government, estimated in more than 1 million to try to save 1 life and risking many others while it has been cases of Spanish emigrants requiring repatriation for medical conditions for months who ended dying.
- The priest wasn't the only Spanish there.
I did hear other things for the spanish people I work with.
El Crazy Xabi on Mon Oct 6 23:01:51 2014 said:
What did I say...?
One of the nurses who attended the second missionary was infected...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/10/06/spanish-health-care-worker-contracts-ebola-in-first-transmission-case-outside-of-africa/
Was to be expected , risk 0 does not exist.
Lets see how it goes.
But if it's true, they were treating them in BSL2 level enviroment instead of BSL4, that risk is unnecessary IMO.
If a full-blown epidemic was spread in one of the "developed" countries, there of course isn't possible to isolate them all in the high biosafety level that is required (our country has only two beds for BSL4 available immediately and just several others in army facilities), but these were single cases, that hospital should have been prepared for.
The decision here must be based on dispassionate risk assessment - re. domestic population and medical,as well as the global risk - less so the policy elements established both as precedent for future issues of this type as well as the receptivity of the nation. Sentimentality for those who knowingly and willingly placed themselves at risk falls pretty far down the priority of decision.
No doubt the in-hospital, esp. isolation ward relevant, protocols have been validated to mitigate risk appropriately - what's not so obvious are the validations of protocols for control of risk from movement of the individual from the medial facility where diagnosed to a controlled status at the US medical facility.
On the policy side, it was entirely irresponsible and inappropriate that the director of the CDC said there was "no risk." There clearly was and is risk - whereas we here do not have information that would let us understand the mitigation of that risk, it is not apparent that anyone understands why this endemic disease has suddenly assumed a much more aggressive epidemic status.
Diseases get publicity largely based on (perceived) risk to the audience. Cholera, bubonic plague, leprosy are all endemic in the US and get occasional brief press. Significant or not - we hear alot more about (usually our own) staph aureus on keyboards and cellphones.