a lowly engineer 's attempt at hard science reporting and digressions into a childhood ecstacy not yet lost
Sunday, October 12, 2014
Did New Ebola Patient Follow Treatment Safety Protocols?
I think that this is the real question in this tragic turn of events. If so, and one would like to believe that there is video of the caregiver's every moment with the patient. I, for one, do not believe that a patient's right to privacy rises above the interest of protecting the masses against infectious disease by a little in-hospital monitoring. As long as the video records are destroyed after all personnel that had contact are cleared of contagion once reasonable time has passed to do otherwise seems a bit too insane given how error prone humans are.The multi-trillion dollar question here is that if the caregiver followed all current protocols every moment with the patient and when the caregiver was disposing of potentially infectious hospital gear, then how did the caregiver become infected?Links to .pdf files concerning harm reduction from the WHO site available here.If ebola is still transmissable if all safety protocols were followed, then currrent safety protocols are unacceptable. This would imply that at least aerosol transmission is taking place. Not directly indicate, as another route might be involved, but simply the route that most easily defeats the WHO's Personal Protective Equipment(PPE) given the current guidelines.This does not indicate this strain of ebola is more easily transmitted. It may simply mean that the current safety protocols have has gaps in them since they were introduced. It is worth noting that when working with ebola in a laboratory setting--it is a Class 4 pathogen--requires what are erroneously referred to by some as 'space suits." Yet in a hospital where the risk of accident would seems amplified many times by the relative lack of training with this level of pathogen, not even a self-contained and pressurized breathing apparatus is required.Please note that this post was supposed to precede that which I just posted. I had this ready at 10 AM Eastern US. So, the patient in that post is the same person as the one mentioned here.Sorry about that. I closed the browser and my sleep deprived self failed to get back to it until now.
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