I don't want to panic anyone, but Ebola may be coming to a town near you

[Skyy God]

At least we won't have to slog through another 7-9 Chiefs season....

Now there are American casualties.

Not in Gaza, and not on the ill-fated Malaysian airliner. Now there are American casualties in another war very far away so maybe, goddammit, somebody should start paying more attention to it.

Kent Brantly, 33, an American doctor who has been working in Liberia since October for the North Carolina-based aid organization Samaritan's Purse, is receiving intensive medical treatment after he was infected with Ebola, according to a spokeswoman for the group. Melissa Strickland said Brantly, who is married and has two children, was talking with his doctors and working on his computer while being treated. A second U.S. citizen, Nancy Writebol, also has tested positive for Ebola, Samaritan's Purse said. Writebol is employed by mission group SIM in Liberia and was helping a joint SIM/Samaritan's Purse team treating Ebola patients in Monrovia. Writebol is married with two children, the organization said. "Both of them tonight are in stable condition," Ken Isaacs, Samaritan Purse's vice president of programs and government relations, said Sunday. "But they are not out of the woods yet."

That's some serious Damien-at-Molokai hero stuff right there, still being at your computer while you're being treated for one of the most vicious diseases on the planet. Other medical professionals, alas, are not as lucky.

A Liberian government official said Sunday that one of that country's highest-profile doctors has died in what the World Health Organization (WHO) calls the largest recorded outbreak of the disease...The first Liberian doctor to die of the disease was identified as Samuel Brisbane. He was working as a consultant with the internal medicine unit at the country's largest hospital, the John F. Kennedy Memorial Medical Center in Monrovia. Brisbane, who once was a medical adviser to former Liberian President Charles Taylor, was taken to a treatment center on the outskirts of the capital after falling ill with Ebola and died there, said Tolbert Nyenswah, an assistant health minister. He said another doctor who had been working in Liberia's central Bong County also was being treated for Ebola at the same center where Brisbane died. The situation "is getting more and more scary," Nyenswah said.

Yes, you could say that. The disease is now in both Nigeria and Liberia, and not in the backwater places any more, either, but in the capital cities. The ones with millions of people. And airports.

Over the weekend, health officials in Nigeria raced to stop the spread of Ebola after a man sick with the disease arrived on a flight in Lagos, Africa's largest city with 21 million people. He later died. The man's ability to board an international flight raised new fears that other passengers could carry the disease beyond Africa because of weak passenger inspection and the fact that Ebola's initial symptoms can resemble those of other illnesses. Isaacs said in an interview that "where it gets really scary" is that the disease, which was previously seen only "in very remote, small villages in Africa" is now being contracted by people in the capital cities of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. "Now the disease has been introduced into the big urban areas with millions of people," he said. "In the big cities, people can get on an airplane and fly out." Isaacs does not believe this outbreak his peaked. "I think the worst is yet to come," he said. "I hope I'm wrong."

Meanwhile, the local customs aren't helping a lot, either.

Koroma, 32, a resident of the densely populated Wellington district, had been admitted to an isolation ward while blood samples were tested for the virus, said Sidi Yahya Tunis, a health ministry spokesman. The results came back on Thursday. "The family of the patient stormed the hospital and forcefully removed her and took her away," Tunis said. "We are searching for her."

Jesus save us. I don't mean to sound like a cultural imperialist -- although I seriously doubt that the people in rural Sierra Leone are acting out of what they know about the Tuskegee experiments, or what happened in Guatemala in the 1940's -- but snatching an Ebola patient out of the hospital doesn't sound like a very good way to fight the disease, family networks notwithstanding. (The purloined patient eventually died.) This thing is one airplane flight away from being an international catastrophe, but there is no boom-boom, and without boom-boom, there is no news. However, you know, Americans are getting sick now. Hey, Wolf! Over here?

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politic...Ebola_Outbreak

[kepp]

Originally Posted by loochy

They didn't wear protective equipment for the first two days that they cared for ebola-man.

That involved lots of barf and spray poop.

Which absolutely blows my mind. I don't even...

[loochy]

Originally Posted by L.A. Chieffan

Why weren't they?

tarded?

unprepared?

it doesnt matter now

[Skyy God]

Originally Posted by loochy

They didn't wear protective equipment for the first two days that they cared for ebola-man.

That involved lots of barf and spray poop.

Medical tape around gaps in equipment, Christ. That hospital was way unprepared.

http://www.boston.com/health/2014/10...1lI/story.html

[KC native]

Originally Posted by L.A. Chieffan

Why weren't they?

Because the people that run Dallas Presbyterian are ****ing morons.

[Discuss Thrower]

Originally Posted by KC native

Because the people that run Dallas Presbyterian are ****ing morons.

And what makes you think they're any better than 50% of the hospitals in the country?

You think Freeman Hospital in Joplin could handle a Thomas Eric Duncan without a handful of nurses coming up infected?

[KC native]

Originally Posted by Discuss Thrower

And what makes you think they're any better than 50% of the hospitals in the country?

You think Freeman Hospital in Joplin could handle a Thomas Eric Duncan without a handful of nurses coming up infected?

Yes

[rabblerouser]

Originally Posted by Discuss Thrower

And what makes you think they're any better than 50% of the hospitals in the country?

You think Freeman Hospital in Joplin could handle a Thomas Eric Duncan without a handful of nurses coming up infected?

How about Western Missouri Medical Center in Warrensburg??

[L.A. Chieffan]

That Dallas hospital could have been any other hospital in America. I don't think they happen to be dumber or less prepared than anywhere else.

[KC native]

Originally Posted by L.A. Chieffan

That Dallas hospital could have been any other hospital in America. I don't think they happen to be dumber or less prepared than anywhere else.

Absolutely they were dumber.

They suspected that he had ebola when he was admitted. They should have immediately went to the protocols but for some reason they allowed nurses in there for 2 days while waiting on the results from the ebola test.

[Marcellus]

Originally Posted by Discuss Thrower

And what makes you think they're any better than 50% of the hospitals in the country?

You think Freeman Hospital in Joplin could handle a Thomas Eric Duncan without a handful of nurses coming up infected?

You do realize its not rocket science right? Dallas Presbyterian was simply wreckless.

This doesn't involve the need for some crazy level of training. I would venture 99.9% of most hospitals could handle it.

[L.A. Chieffan]

Any every other hospital would have done precisely that? Highly doubtful.

You're basically saying that the one case of Ebola coming into the country for the first time ever, just coincidentally happened to go to the dumbest hospital in the country...just bad luck right?

[Donger]

Originally Posted by L.A. Chieffan

That Dallas hospital could have been any other hospital in America. I don't think they happen to be dumber or less prepared than anywhere else.

Could have been? Perhaps.

But, does anyone really think that NOW, if a patient shows up at ANY hospital with projectile vomiting and explosive diarrhea, the doctors and nurse WON'T assume it's Ebola and take the requisite precautions?

[Marcellus]

Originally Posted by L.A. Chieffan

Any every other hospital would have done precisely that? Highly doubtful.

You're basically saying that one case of Ebola coming into the country for the first time ever, just coincidentally happened to go to the dumbest hospital in the country...just bad luck right?

What do you think would happen if you walked into a hospital and had Ebola like symptoms and had been internationally traveling recently?

[KC native]

Originally Posted by L.A. Chieffan

Any every other hospital would have done precisely that? Highly doubtful.

You're basically saying that the one case of Ebola coming into the country for the first time ever, just coincidentally happened to go to the dumbest hospital in the country...just bad luck right?

The guy told them that he had been in Africa. They suspected Ebola when he was admitted which means they should have immediately taken precautions.

Completely their **** up.

[sd4chiefs]

Originally Posted by KC native

Because the people that run Dallas Presbyterian are ****ing morons.

I just want to beat the shit out of whoever is in charge of that hospital.