'No End in Sight' for Ebola Crisis: Top Doc
Monday, 10 Nov 2014 04:31 PM
A new U.S. proposal to spend more than $6 billion fighting Ebola is being hailed by global health experts as a step toward building the kind of healthcare infrastructure that can prevent future outbreaks of the virus and other infectious diseases.
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But a top disease-control specialist says the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa is still out of control and more needs to be done to train healthcare workers there and in the U.S. to contain the virus. Stephen S. Morse, a professor of epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, tells Newsmax TV’s “Meet the Doctors” program that controlling the epidemic “is proving to be very difficult.”
He adds that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health officials have been playing “catchup,” but have largely fallen short, in attempting to stay ahead of the virus.
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“So far we have over 10,000 cases and no end in sight yet, there simply are not yet enough people and enough resources to be able to control the epidemic yet,” says Morse, who chairs Columbia’s Institutional Biosafety Committee. “So we’d like obviously to be able to have more healthcare workers go over and many of them may be afraid to because they’ve heard about infections in healthcare workers and perhaps what might happen to them when they’re quarantined back here.”
President Barack Obama announced plans this month to ask Congress to authorize $6.18 billion — six times what the U.S. has already committed — to combat Ebola in West Africa and in the United States. The request comes months into the epidemic that has already infected 13,000 people, killing nearly half of them.
Morse says that while the outbreak does not currently pose a big risk to most Americans, more needs to be done to combat the virus in the West African outbreak zone and protect healthcare workers here. The U.S. has already seen a few cases, including two Dallas nurses who were infected while treating a Liberian Ebola patient who died last month. Other Americans — including a freelance NBC camera man, New York City doctor, and Maine nurse — also contracted the disease while treating people in Africa.
CDC guidelines for U.S. healthcare workers — including the use of protective suits, gloves, masks, and boots — must followed closely, Morse says. It’s also critical for doctors and nurses to track their own health, if they’ve been exposed to Ebola patients, as federal health officials recommend.
“A few people may come across from Africa who have been exposed to Ebola and, hopefully … they will get recognized in time and if they’re recognized in time they won’t be a danger to themselves or anyone else,” Morse says. “I think healthcare workers, if they’re given good instructions, in most cases, will be compliant [with CDC guidelines] … If they think they’re in any danger, or a danger to others, and will get treatment when they feel they’re coming down with something.”
Morse notes Ebola can only be transmitted through direct exposure to the body fluids of a person with symptoms of the virus, and it is not spread through the air, like influenza. That’s one reason public transportation is not a major vehicle for transmitting Ebola in the U.S., he explains.
“Ebola is pretty rare even here, and ... you do get sick very quickly” after infection, he says. “It starts out like the flu, but there is stomach pain, there are abdominal symptoms, there may be diarrhea. And at that point most people would go to the doctor anyway because they’re really not feeling well. Those people feeling well enough to travel…some of those people may be incubating Ebola but usually you’d be able to see it.”
Morse also stresses that it’s important to take precautions this year to avoid catching the flu, which can produce symptoms — such as fever and gastrointestinal distress — that could be mistaken for Ebola.
“The flu is much more common [than Ebola], so especially this season if people are sneezing and coughing, as they always do the subways, it probably is the flu. So taking your flu shot is a good idea anyway,” he says.
He adds that more needs to be done to educate U.S. healthcare and hospital workers who are likely to be most exposed to Ebola patients and therefore more vulnerable to infection than the general public.
“I think there’s a lot of awareness of it,” he says, “there needs to be more and I think the hospital preparedness needs to be improved — you know, the clinician, your emergency room physician needs to know more about it. But I think the public has learned quite a bit.
Asked if CDC is doing enough to protect Americans, Morse says:“We’re almost always playing catchup when we have an epidemic because it’s almost never expected. And an Ebola outbreak of this size is certainly not expected. It’s unprecedented in history — that’s one of the reasons why we’re so overwhelmed by it in Africa…we’re always playing catchup with epidemics.”
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