U.S. needs to rethink Ebola infection controls says CDC chief | Reuters

U.S. needs to rethink Ebola infection controls says CDC chief | Reuters
▻http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/13/us-health-ebola-idUSKCN0I21M020141013

(Reuters) - The case of a Dallas nurse who contracted Ebola while caring for a dying Liberian patient shows that the United States needs to rethink how it handles highly infectious diseases as an outbreak of the deadly virus spreads beyond West Africa, a U.S. health official said on Monday.

Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said health authorities are still investigating how the nurse became infected while caring for Thomas Eric Duncan in an isolation ward at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.

(...)

Frieden also apologized for remarks on Sunday, when the nurse’s infection was first disclosed, that suggested she was responsible for a breach in protocols that exposed her to the virus. Some healthcare experts said the comments failed to address deep gaps in training hospital staff to deal with Ebola.

“I’m sorry if that was the impression given,” Frieden said. He said the agency would take steps to increase the awareness of Ebola at the nation’s hospitals and training for staff.

Ebola : la seconde contamination aux Etats-Unis « très inquiétante », d’autres cas possibles
▻http://www.sudouest.fr/2014/10/15/ebola-la-seconde-contamination-aux-etats-unis-tres-inquietante-d-autres-cas

Thomas Frieden avait avancé l’hypothèse d’une faille de protocole pour expliquer le premier cas de contamination. Mais un syndicat d’infirmières a répliqué mardi qu’aucun protocole n’avait été fourni pour traiter les patients touchés à l’hôpital de Dallas.

@matthewstoller
▻https://mobile.twitter.com/costrike/status/522412754066362369

The U.S. health care system is about cash, not care. That’s panic-worthy. Ebola is just revealing this truth in technicolor.

Nurses’ union: Dallas hospital lacked Ebola protocols
▻http://www.cbsnews.com/news/nurses-union-dallas-hospital-lacked-ebola-protocols

A national nurses union is decrying an absence of protocols at the Dallas hospital where a man died of Ebola and a nurse was infected while caring for him.

Leaders of the National Nurses Union read a statement Tuesday which they said represented concerns from a number of nurses that work at Texas Health Presbyterian in Dallas. The union officials declined to identify the Dallas nurses or say how many were participating in the statement.

But they were vociferous in citing a lack of protocols on the day that Thomas Eric Duncan was admitted with extreme symptoms of Ebola.

Among the flaws cited by the group included:

– insufficient garb worn by the emergency personnel

– the fact that Duncan was left “for hours” in a non-quarantined zone

– that his lab samples were sent in the same way that normal specimens are sent

– hospital official allowed nurses involved with Duncan to take care of other patients

– other ways in which the hospital did not immediately react to the situation.

“Were protocols breached?” said union spokeswoman Rose Ann DeMoro, “There were no protocols.”

“These nurses are not well protected. They’re not prepared to handle Ebola or any other pandemic,” said DeMoro. “We are deeply alarmed.”

DeMoro said the nurses who had come forward were afraid to reveal their identities “because of a culture of threat in the hospitals.”