The couple’s son, Jeremy, said that Mrs Writebol was in isolation, and her husband is able to see her through a window but is not allowed direct contact with her.
He told NBC’s Today show: “She’s stable. As dad put it, she’s fighting through it, and continuing to express a few symptoms, but she’s able to move around on her own, and they’re getting lots of fluids into her. She’s working real hard to get through this.”
What’s Being Done:
• Liberian and Nigerian airports and seaports began screening international arrivals for Ebola symptoms, however these can take up to 21 days to appear
• Pan-African airline ASKY has suspended all flights to and from the capitals of Liberia and Sierra Leone over the worsening health crisis
• The Liberian Football Association has decided “to cease operations of football activities considering that football matches are contact sports and Ebola is spread through body contacts with an infected person”
Ebola in the U.S.?
So, could the Ebola virus come to the United States? Definitely. Would it spread widely? Unlikely.
Raj Panjabi, Last Mile co-founder and CEO, said it is very clear that the epidemic can be brought under control in West Africa by rapidly identifying sick people, treating them, and preventing the disease from being spread.
But all that takes money, of course, and area governments and nonprofits don’t have enough resources to tackle the problem on their own, Panjabi said.
“We do not anticipate this will spread in the U.S. if an infected person is hospitalized here,” CDC Director Tom Frieden said in a statement Tuesday. “We are taking action now by alerting health care workers in the U.S. and reminding them how to isolate and test suspected patients while following strict infection-control procedures.”
American hospitals are adequately supplied with infection-control equipment like gloves, gowns, and masks that will prevent the spread of the disease. American medical care workers—educated by the AIDS epidemic—know how to keep themselves safe while treating sick patients. And the American system of reporting illness would identify a sick patient very quickly, allowing the disease to be contained and controlled.
But it’s still in America’s interest to control the disease in West Africa, Panjabi said.
“If we respond well to this, we could both impact the epidemic—control it, stop it—but also do it in a way that strengthens the long-term primary care system,” he said, which “could protect against future [epidemics].”
Ebola Virus Is Spreading: Should You Be Concerned? was originally published on blackdoctor.org
