Items Tagged with 'Ebola epidemic'

A U.S. physician who just returned from Guinea has tested positive for the Ebola virus, according to news sources, who say that Dr. Craig Spencer, 33, had been in the West African country working for Doctors Without Borders.

Innovative measures have limited the spread of Ebola in a part of Liberia where Firestone Liberia Inc. had established an effective health care infrastructure, according to a report in this week’s CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). Similar measures may be helpful in slowing the Ebola epidemic in other parts of West Africa.

“I had a reporter call me,” said an attendee at this week’s American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) annual Fall Conference, held in Arlington, VA. “He said he had spent three hours at the Congressional Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) hearing last week, where CDC Director Tom Frieden was grilled, and not once was OSHA or NIOSH mentioned, according to this reporter. He wanted to know why.”

USA Today reports that “Hospital workers treating Ebola patients should wear double sets of gloves, disposable hoods with full face shields and special masks, according to strengthened guidelines issued” last night by the CDC. CDC Director Thomas Frieden “said all health workers also should undergo ‘rigorous training’ and practice in putting on and taking off PPE in a systematic way that reduces their risk of infection.

An Ebola diagnosis for a healthcare worker at Texas Presbyterian Hospital who cared for a patient with the disease has the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) scrambling to determine how she was exposed despite wearing a protective gown, gloves, mask and shield.