Patient in QHC Belleville being tested for Ebola
Administrator | Oct 13, 2014 | Comments 17
Quinte Health Care has identified that a patient arrived at its Belleville General Hospital emergency room early Monday who is being tested for Ebola as a precautionary measure.
“Although the patient has recently returned from West Africa and has some symptoms common with the Ebola virus, it is highly unlikely that this patient will test positive for Ebola,” said QHC in a press release this afternoon.
“Given his symptoms and that he was not exposed to any ill people during a very short stopover in West Africa, it is extremely unlikely that he would test positive for Ebola. We expect he has any number of diseases common when people travel,” said Dr. Dick Zoutman, QHC Chief of Staff and a nationally recognized inflection control expert.
“However, since we cannot immediately rule out Ebola, we are taking the conservative approach and sending a sample out for testing at the National Microbiology lab in Winnipeg.” Testing takes between 24 and 36 hours. The patient will remain at Belleville General Hospital in isolation in the meantime.
Dr. Zoutman added that this has been a test of hospital infection control precautions and shows that the system is working. “Our staff and physicians have handled this case exactly as they have been trained to do,” said Dr. Zoutman. “It was about four minutes from the time the patient arrived at our hospital until he was placed in the proper isolation room. From an infection control perspective, the risk to anyone else was virtually non-existent.”
Filed Under: Local News
From the CDC website http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/transmission/index.html?s_cid=cs_3923 .
“When an infection does occur in humans, the virus can be spread in several ways to others. Ebola is spread through direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes in, for example, the eyes, nose, or mouth) with
•blood or body fluids (including but not limited to urine, saliva, sweat, feces, vomit, breast milk, and semen) of a person who is sick with Ebola”
So if an infected ebola individual sneezes on a plane and the water droplet goes into the eye of the person sitting beside or in front of them causing them to become infected as result of coming in contact with bodily fluids it is not airborne.
I’m sure those two nurses had put their faith in the CDC (infectious disease experts) its been reported that the one nurse asked the “experts” if was ok to travel on a commercial flight.
Depends on who you put your trust in. The people going around claiming that “we don’t know if it is airborne” are being very irresponsible, in my opinion. That creates further panic.
So you can’t say something like “I don’t know why the media creates all this panic when they don’t know if someone has Ebola yet”, while still going around saying “It could be airborne.” Both create the same thing: unnecessary panic.
I chose to put my trust in the infectious disease experts who are all saying it is not airborne and the risk remains very small to Westerners.
I get that. But you must admit they are all over the place on this and ill prepared with equipment and messaging.
You don’t think there is some necessary due diligence that has to be done? Did a passenger sit on a toilet seat after the nurse used the washroom, for example?
If Ebola cannot be spread from airborne contact then I need to ask, why are they tracking every passenger that was on the US commercial flight with the most recent confirmed ebola health worker case? Trying to make sense of this. Are we being told everything we need to know? A lot of us fly regularly and if not airborne what’s the concern?
What is happening is not always released to the public at first. We know the young nurse in Texas was very well trained and fully protected but is infected. Reportedly even after recovering from ebola the virus is found in semen up to 3 months afterwards. There is still a lot to learn. And governments are cautious of hysteria.
Relax, banned. That kind of negative energy isn’t good for a person. It really isn’t worth it to get so frustrated by a post online. Go outside, get some fresh air and feel your connection to nature.
Peace.
Agreed, Banned. We have already been told that there is only a small chance that the patient in isolation at BGH has Ebola. Time enough to become excited when and if a diagnosis is confirmed. The internet carries a lot of valuable information and an equal amount of undocumented nonsense that causes a great deal of unnecessary fear. Dr. Google could well be sued for malpractice in many instances.
Ashley, it is airborne if you were the recipient of direct bodily fluids from a sneeze.
“Do a little research online”, says every conspiracy theorist ever.
You people must live for situations like this.
It is extremely irresponsible for anyone to make up things to try to make themselves seem smart. Ebola is not airborne. If it were, we would know about it by now, like we do with things like measles (which the idiot anti vaccers have helped bring back when it was essentially wiped out not long ago).
The mass hysteria brought on by conspiracy theorists spreads quicker than the disease itself. You are the most frustrating people in the world.
Do a little research online and you will find many reports saying this strain of ebola can be spread through aerosol means.
It isn’t as cut and dried as the CDC would have us believe. Their stories change from one day to the next.
How can they say that? The medical officer of health isn’t quite as dismissive in his report to CBC. I would think that more travel restrictions should be considered.
Susan they can say that because unless he was bleeding or drooling or sweating all over the place he would not transfer the possible ebola that he probably doesn’t have. It isn’t airborne.
So the 4 minutes the patient was in the emergency services the opportunity for someone to become infected is virtually non-existent. How can they that?
Terence Dunlop, I can say that this is a legitimate concern. I don’t understand why the federal government feels comfortable with leaving Canadian citizens in war torn countries like Syria, for two years because they are married to a Syrian, and the government hasn’t had time to make sure the spouse isn’t a security threat; but will allow people to travel from and through West Africa without any type of quarentine period. Logic would dictate that there should be a 21 day quarentine period, if symptoms arise then the person should be immediately transfered to a facility where the staff are specially trained in such protection matters. As healthcare workers we are all trained in the use of isolation gear. Compliance is sloppy at best. There are a million ways that a person can infect themselves during the process of equipment removal. It’s not an easy process, it takes concentration and diligence. I would not want to be faced with having to care for a potentially, or actually infected person.