NUMC: We’re prepared to treat Ebola

Two patients who showed symptoms last month were diagnosed with malaria

Posted

Nassau University Medical Center officials said their staff is prepared to respond to an Ebola outbreak should the virus make its way to Long Island.

In a press conference in the East Meadow facility on Oct. 9, Dr. Victor Politi, the hospital’s president and CEO, explained recent initiatives by his staff to prepare first responders to treat patients showing symptoms of contagious diseases like Ebola.

Just last month, Politi said, the NUMC treated two patients who had recently traveled from “endemic areas” affected by Ebola, and who showed symptoms of the disease. Both were quarantined, treated, and later diagnosed with malaria.

Politi said that the outbreak in West Africa motivated NUMC officials to host a training seminar involving about 225 hospital staff members and Nassau County first responders. But the response protocols do not differ much from those of other infectious diseases, he said, so the seminar served as more of a refresher course.

Of the utmost importance, Politi said, is immediately quarantining patients who show Ebola-like symptoms, and protecting those who come in contact with them to prevent exposure.

On Sept. 30, the first case of Ebola in the U.S. was confirmed when Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian native, traveled from West Africa to Dallas carrying the disease. Duncan died on Oct. 8.

On Oct. 12, a Dallas nurse who had treated Duncan tested positive for Ebola, becoming the country’s second confirmed case. On Oct. 15, a second healthcare worker at the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, where Duncan was treated, tested positive for the disease, according to the state's department of health.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the 2014 Ebola epidemic is the largest in history, with more than 8,000 cases and 4,024 confirmed deaths as of Oct. 10. Three countries, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, are currently experiencing widespread transmission.

In response to the outbreak, the CDC and the Department of Homeland Security initiated enhanced screening at five airports, including John F. Kennedy International, for travelers arriving from those three countries. According to the CDC, in the 12 months ending July 30, nearly half of the travelers from the region passed through JFK.

Page 1 / 2