Healthcare Workers to Be Trained on Use of Protective Gear Against Ebola

From Montgomery Community Media:

Montgomery County health-care workers will receive more training on safety precautions after two patients were admitted to local hospitals with Ebola-like symptoms.

Neither patient had the infectious disease, which does not have a vaccine, according to Montgomery County Health Officer Dr. Ulder Tillman.

Dr. Tillman gave the Montgomery County Council Tuesday an update on the efforts to educate the county residents on Ebola and prepare the healthcare community here for patients who may present with symptoms of the disease. Those two patients, one who was seen at the Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center in Rockville and the other in Holy Cross Hospital in Germantown, did not get tested for Ebola because their symptoms did not warrant testing, she said. Ebola symptoms are similar to influenza and malaria.

In response, Tillman said she is urging healthcare providers to ask patients their travel history as well as determining symptoms in an effort to source their sickness. Concerns about Ebola spread as the U.S. now has two confirmed cases of the disease. Five U.S. airports, including Dulles International, are now checking some international passengers for a fever, one of the symptoms of Ebola.

Tillman said patients are not contagious with Ebola until they have symptoms like a fever and she said, the transfer of the disease is by bodily fluid, not via the air.

Plans are in the works to provide healthcare workers with better training on how to use and dispose of protective gear when caring for patients with contagious diseases like Ebola, Tillman said.

Councilmember Roger Berliner suggested patients who have Ebola should be treated at designated facilities, not at hospitals throughout the country.

“It is too much to ask of our hospitals to be state-of-the-art when it comes to this disease,” he said.

The National Institutes of Health in Bethesda is one of four facilities in the United States with special isolation facilities where Ebola patients can more easily be treated.

Councilmember Hans Reimer suggested the county needs to do more outreach to the immigrant community who may have family affected by the disease in West Africa.

You can find out more information about Ebola here.