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posted by martyb on Thursday October 16 2014, @11:34PM   Printer-friendly
from the connecting-the-dots dept.

Pamela Engel writes that Americans need only look to Nigeria to calm their fears about an Ebola outbreak in the US. Nigeria is much closer to the West Africa outbreak than the US is, yet even after Ebola entered the country in the most terrifying way possible — via a visibly sick passenger on a commercial flight — officials successfully shut down the disease and prevented widespread transmission. If there are still no new cases on October 20, the World Health Organization will officially declare the country "Ebola-free". Here's how Nigeria did it.

The first person to bring Ebola to Nigeria was Patrick Sawyer, who left a hospital in Liberia against the wishes of the medical staff and flew to Nigeria. Once Sawyer arrived, it became obvious that he was ill when he passed out in the Lagos airport, and he was taken to a hospital in the densely packed city of 20 million. Once the country's first Ebola case was confirmed, Port Health Services in Nigeria started a process called contact tracing to limit the spread of the disease and created an emergency operations center to coordinate and oversee the national response. Health officials used a variety of resources, including phone records and flight manifests, to track down nearly 900 people who might have been exposed to the virus via Sawyer or the people he infected. As soon as people developed symptoms suggestive of Ebola, they were isolated in Ebola treatment facilities. Without waiting to see whether a "suspected" case tested positive, Nigeria's contact tracing team tracked down everyone who had had contact with that patient since the onset of symptoms making a staggering 18,500 face-to-face visits.

The US has many of these same procedures in place for containing Ebola, making the risk of an outbreak here very low. Contact tracing is exactly what is happening in Dallas right now; if any one of Thomas Eric Duncan's contacts shows symptoms, that person will be immediately isolated and tested. “That experience shows us that even in the case in Nigeria, when we found out later in the timeline that this patient had Ebola, that Nigeria was able to identify contacts, institute strict infection control procedures and basically bring their outbreak to a close”, says Dr. Tom Inglesby. “They did a good job in and of themselves. They worked closely with the U.S. CDC. If we can succeed in Nigeria… I do believe we will stop it here.”

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 17 2014, @03:44AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 17 2014, @03:44AM (#106884)

    The US Surgeon General the other day (without knowing all the facts, obviously) accused the nurse in Texas of not following protocols.
    Is there even a specific protocol for dealing with Ebola patients in the USA?

    I was going to specifically mention Republicans in this thread.
    Oh, look. I just did that.
    Maybe a close brush with death by the "small gov't" types will affect the way they approach these things in the future, James Brady style.
    I will say that your no-finger-pointing approach showed great self-control.

    -- gewg_

  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 17 2014, @04:53AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 17 2014, @04:53AM (#106894)

    > The US Surgeon General the other day (without knowing all the facts, obviously) accused the nurse in Texas of not following protocols.

    (1) Not the surgeon general, it was Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. And he didn't accuse anyone. Stop watching tv news.
    "Certainly there has to have been an inadvertent, innocent breach of the protocol of taking care of the patient within the personal protective equipment -- that extremely rarely happens,"

    (2) He was RIGHT. Not only was he right, he vastly under-estimated the level of "protocol breach." [cnn.com] They treated the patient for two days without the appropriate protective clothing - they were putting tape on their exposed skin for chrissakes.

    > Is there even a specific protocol for dealing with Ebola patients in the USA?

    Yes. But it takes a lot of practice to get it right. [vox.com]

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 17 2014, @05:10AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 17 2014, @05:10AM (#106896)

      Stop watching tv news

      Radio, but yeah, lamestream media.
      I normally switch the station when AP's headline news comes on but I heard just a bit of it that day.

      treated the patient for two days without the appropriate protective clothing

      ...and they're expecting TSA's high-school-dropout rent-a-cops to spot infectious folks in airports.
      I'm sure that will be a huge success.

      -- gewg_

  • (Score: 2) by khallow on Friday October 17 2014, @10:25AM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday October 17 2014, @10:25AM (#106936) Journal

    I was going to specifically mention Republicans in this thread.

    And you did. Aside from identifying yourself as a member of a group with a peculiar obsession for blame finding, what was the point of that? Republicans weren't involved.

    Maybe a close brush with death by the "small gov't" types will affect the way they approach these things in the future, James Brady style.

    Because the only two choices we have are death in the streets xor government micromanagement of health care. Well, there's one obvious third choice just with what meager options we have here, we could have the best of both worlds and have both death in the streets and costly government micro(mis)management.

    I will say that your no-finger-pointing approach showed great self-control.

    And your finger pointing shows something else.

  • (Score: 2) by rts008 on Friday October 17 2014, @01:04PM

    by rts008 (3001) on Friday October 17 2014, @01:04PM (#106985)

    Well, while you are on your Republican topic, I should point out that we do not have a Surgeon General.

    The Republicans filibustered the appointment last year, refusing to allow a S.G. to be appointed.

    IIRC, the heads of the CDC and NIH[1] have been trying to pick up that slack(acting SG) in their 'spare time'.

    [1]CDC= Center for Disease Control; NIH= National Institute of Health

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 17 2014, @09:41PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 17 2014, @09:41PM (#107158)

      Thanks to you and the previous AC.
      The fog is clearing.

      I have a low tolerance for the bought-and-paid-for Blues as well, but, with a Red majority in the House and the Blues permitting a (Red)-minority-rules setup in the Senate, it's clear who is gumming up the works so that the black guy isn't allowed to get any points on the scoreboard.

      N.B. My last remaining trustworthy radio news outlet (Pacifica) has been in fund drive mode for a while now and the "special" stuff they're putting on isn't all that useful.

      -- gewg_