Brief Ebola Scare at Marin General Hospital This Week

By Bay City News Service:

A patient who was possibly at risk for the Ebola virus was admitted to a Marin County hospital Monday morning and later found to not have the disease, hospital officials announced.

The patient arrived to Marin General Hospital in Greenbrae and was placed in an isolation room of the intensive care unit, according to hospital officials.

The patient was later found to not meet the criteria of Ebola after an assessment by nurses and doctors, who had reached out to county and state health officials, hospital spokeswoman Jaime Maites said.

The nurses and doctors followed protocol set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, hospital spokeswoman Hatti Hamlin said.

The hospital enforced its incident command center system and took precautionary measures to protect its staff and visitors as they cared for the patient, according to hospital officials.

Maites and Hamlin did not know if the patient was released and did not have further information available as of Monday evening.

Ebola is a potentially deadly virus that has spread in West African countries, CDC officials said.

There have been two confirmed cases of Ebola so far in the U.S. A person who traveled from West Africa to Dallas, Texas was confirmed to have the illness on Sept. 30 and died on Wednesday, while a health care worker who aided the person tested positive for the disease on Friday and is in isolation, according to the CDC.

Symptoms of Ebola include a fever of more than 101.5 degrees Fahrenheit, a severe headache, muscle pain, weakness, diarrhea and vomiting, CDC officials said.

The Marin County Health and Human Services Department has said the risk of anyone having the disease is relatively low in the county and has response plans prepared in the event of an Ebola case in the area.

Those who have traveled to countries affected by the disease will have their temperatures taken once they arrive at airports across the U.S., county health officials said.

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