Tag: isolation
Backlash Hurts Dallas Neighborhood Touched By Ebola Case

Backlash Hurts Dallas Neighborhood Touched By Ebola Case

By Dianna Hunt and Dianne Solis, The Dallas Morning News

DALLAS — Schoolchildren were left without tutors. Medical clinics were short on staff. Workers were told to stay home. And the shelves at a food bank were stocked and ready but few people turned up for supplies.

A backlash against immigrants and refugees in the Vickery Meadow area — the heart of the community touched by the Dallas Ebola case — is causing a shortage of volunteers at some charities. Work-related problems are surfacing for others, community leaders said.

The residents are being unfairly targeted by those who don’t understand they are not at risk of passing on the Ebola virus, said Dallas City Council member Jennifer Staubach Gates, who represents the area.

“These residents are safe,” Gates said. “Even though they are at the epicenter of the Ebola case … they are not at risk for getting the disease and they are not at risk of transmitting the disease, and unfortunately they are feeling discriminated against.”

Residents who came in contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian man fighting for his life at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, are being monitored. Those who didn’t have contact with him are not at risk of contracting or spreading the virus, health officials have said.

But that hasn’t stopped volunteers from failing to show up, prompting a renewed call for people willing to work in the community, said Ellen Mata, director of mission programs at NorthPark Presbyterian Church. She is coordinating the recruitment effort.

Mata said one or two dozen volunteers failed to show up in the week since the Ebola crisis began. “Several of these nonprofits have had volunteers who have backed out on commitments,” she said. “We are trying to fill those.”

Particularly hard hit have been Heart House Dallas, which provides tutors and after-school help for children in four apartment complexes, and the Vickery Meadow Neighborhood Alliance Food Pantry, Mata said.

“Some of the after-school programs are needing volunteers to help with tutoring and reading with the kiddos,” she said. “They are looking for some people to help with special projects.”
Officials at the food pantry were expecting the usual heavy turnout on the first Saturday of the month. But volunteers and people in need largely stayed home, officials said.
“People needing food were afraid to leave their family … because of the way people (in the community) are treating them,” Mata said.

Gates said many residents don’t understand what is happening. “They’re a vulnerable population,” she said. “The trust factor is not always there with government officials. We have to let them know we’re here to help.”

Officials at Heart House and the food pantry did not return phone calls for comment.

Meanwhile, new volunteers are beginning to step forward, including a registered nurse who will be assigned to work at Healing Hands Ministries, which operates a medical and dental clinic, Mata said.

Rebecca Range, executive director of the Vickery Meadow Improvement District, said about 40 people met Monday, including officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and nonprofits and faith-based groups.

“Many residents are telling them that they can’t go to work and are being turned away at restaurants based on their appearance,” Range said. “Help us spread the word that there is no need for this stigma.”

Two lawyers were brought in to meet with residents but calls to the attorneys were not returned Monday.

At the Human Rights Initiative of North Texas, executive director Bill Holston, who did not attend the meeting, said laws are in place to protect immigrants and other workers.
“It’s a heavily immigrant neighborhood,” he said. “I understand people’s nervousness about an infectious disease but it is wrong to discriminate against an entire class of people.”
Gates said three men told her they were told to leave work at an undisclosed location because they lived in the Ivy Apartments, where Duncan had been staying. “Those people had no contact with Patient Zero and they’re not being traced by the county,” Gates said. “But because of where they live, they were turned down at work.”

Dallas Independent School District officials are working to prevent bullying of students who hail from Africa or the apartment complex. They also are working to prepare students for the day when the five students who came in contact with Duncan — and who are now staying home and being monitored — return to school. The virus has a 21-day incubation period.

“We are … in the process of having a team develop guidance lessons for students around sensitivity, around how Ebola is actually spread and how students can help create a support group for the students when they return to class in a couple of weeks,” said Jon Dahlander, school district spokesman. “Part of the lesson will be about helping all students understand the fear that the students who were exposed to the virus are currently facing.”

Photo/Nathan Hunsinger/Dallas Morning News/MCT

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Doctor Exposed To Ebola Treated In U.S.

Doctor Exposed To Ebola Treated In U.S.

Washington (AFP) — An American doctor who was exposed to the Ebola virus in Sierra Leone was admitted to a clinic of the National Institutes of Health outside Washington.

The patient, whose identity was not revealed, was volunteering as a physician in a unit treating those suffering from the tropical fever that has already killed more than 3,000 people in west Africa since the end of last year.

“Out of an abundance of caution, the patient has been admitted to the NIH Clinical Center’s special clinical studies unit that is specifically designed to provide high-level isolation capabilities and is staffed by infectious diseases and critical care specialists,” the medical research center said in a statement, released Sunday.

“The unit staff is trained in strict infection control practices optimized to prevent spread of potentially transmissible agents such as Ebola.”

It stressed that treating the patient in the United States “presents minimal risk” to other patients, NIH staff, and the public.

Two American doctors and a Christian missionary infected by the Ebola virus in Liberia were flown back to the United States to receive treatment and have since recovered.

Global health experts have agreed that blood therapies and convalescent serums can be used to fight Ebola immediately, while safety trials begin for potential vaccines.

There is no drug or vaccine on the market to treat Ebola.

Ebola is transmitted by close contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person. The virus causes fever, vomiting, diarrhea and sometimes fatal bleeding.

The Ebola epidemic has now infected more than 6,500 people in West Africa and killed nearly half of them, according to the World Health Organization.

AFP Photo/Zoom Dosso

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MERS Patient Is Isolated In Indiana Hospital

MERS Patient Is Isolated In Indiana Hospital

By Juan Perez Jr. and Andy Grimm, Chicago Tribune

The man authorities cite as the nation’s first confirmed case of Middle East respiratory syndrome and dozens of hospital workers who first came into contact with him are being isolated from the public, in an effort to contain the potential spread of a deadly pathogen.

Medical workers at the Indiana hospital who have contact with the man are required to wear gloves, masks, gowns and eye protection. The man, who flew into O’Hare International Airport in Chicago from Saudi Arabia last month and was hospitalized days later, is being held in a room designed for patients with respiratory infections, and is segregated from the hospital’s air circulation system.

The patient needed oxygen during the first part of his stay, officials at Community Hospital in Munster, Ind., said Monday, but was not admitted to intensive care. Doctors said he’s now breathing regular air, is in good spirits and has a good appetite.

As the man’s condition appears to improve and nobody else has shown evidence of infection, officials provided the most detailed account to date of the seriousness of care with which public health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have taken to investigate and contain the potential spread of MERS in the United States.

About 50 hospital nurses, clerks, aides, dietary experts and other workers who came into contact with the patient before his infection was confirmed are on paid leave — isolated in their homes as experts watch for signs of symptoms and test for infection during the virus’ known incubation period.

The patient’s family members are in the same predicament. Those isolated at home have been asked to wear face masks if they leave the building, officials said.

At a briefing with Indiana and federal officials Monday, officials said the Saudi Arabian health care worker, who has not been identified but whom experts refer to as the “index patient,” is expected to return to home isolation with his family “very soon.”

But it’s unclear when the man, who officials said entered the U.S. through O’Hare while en route to a planned visit with Indiana relatives, will be able to travel or leave the country.

No one who has been isolated because of their contact with the patient has tested positive for the virus, officials said. Its incubation period lasts an estimated two to 14 days, and the patient first reported his illness at an Indiana hospital on April 28.

“We think this is well-contained, but we are exercising an abundance of caution,” said Dr. Daniel Feikin, a CDC epidemiologist and head of an agency response and investigation team sent to Indiana.

“I think it is promising that the staff that have had contact with him have already tested negative,” he said.

Feikin said the patient lives in Saudi Arabia and was working in a Riyadh hospital that housed MERS patients, though Feikin said the patient did not recall working directly with infected persons.

MERS is a new type of what scientists call “coronaviruses,” a widespread group of diseases that includes the common cold and pneumonia. The highly contagious SARS virus, which killed hundreds in Asia and North America in the early 2000s, is another kind of coronavirus.

First discovered in a Saudi Arabian patient in summer 2012, some experts believe MERS originated from an animal source because it’s been detected in camels and bats in the Middle East. MERS symptoms — fever, cough and respiratory problems — resemble those of influenza. Unlike the flu, however, there is no available vaccine or specific treatment recommended for the virus.

Health officials around the world have been particularly concerned about MERS because it is a new virus that scientists still have much to learn about, but has already proven to be quite lethal, with a recent CDC estimate showing it has killed nearly one quarter of the people who contracted it.

U.S. health experts aren’t certain where MERS originated, but say they’ve long expected the virus’ arrival to the country. Still, they say it currently poses low risk to the general public.

CDC officials said the patient flew from Riyadh to London, then onto Chicago before boarding a bus to Indiana on April 24. Roughly 100 people were on the patient’s flight to Chicago, officials said. Ten were on the bus.

The CDC has quarantine stations at ports of entry across the country, including one inside the international wing of O’Hare airport. But the patient did not identify himself as being ill when he cleared customs, Feikin said. His symptoms did not develop until after his arrival, Feikin said.

There is no active screening for passengers arriving from the Arabian Peninsula, Feikin said, nor are there any travel restrictions to countries in the region.

Nearly three-quarters of the patient’s fellow air travelers had been contacted, Feikin said, and none had exhibited any symptoms. State officials were working to identify bus passengers and officials in London are probing the Riyadh to Heathrow leg of the journey, Feikin said.

“We do know that he had limited exposure to the community once he arrived. He went directly to his family’s house,” Feikin said.

The patient arrived with family members at the hospital on the evening of April 28, said Dr. Alan Kumar, Community Hospital’s chief medical information officer. He was admitted to a private triage room, practitioner’s room and bed within three hours of his arrival.

But after confirming the man had contracted MERS, and considering the virus’ mysterious nature, officials pulled hospital workers from duty, Kumar said.

Officials used a variety of surveillance and recordkeeping tools to locate hospital workers who might have been exposed. They reviewed security camera footage to track the patient’s movements through the building and examined medical records to determine who was near him and when. The hospital’s health care workers are also tracked by a radio-frequency identification system, a hospital official said, which tells officials exactly where workers are at during a given time.

“If you think about it, you would think ‘Wow, that’s a ton of people,’ but we actually have 3,500 people who work on this campus on a daily basis,” Kumar said. Other workers have been called in to fill vacant shifts, Kumar said, and the hospital has been running its normal operations.

laurabillings via Flickr

Why You Should Question The Official Version Of The Saudi Assassination Plot

The official version of the foiled Saudi diplomat’s assassination sounds too convoluted to be true — and many skeptics have pointed to inconsistencies and holes in the plot to suggest that the U.S. government is using the incident as an excuse to further isolate Iran.

The government’s account of the events sounds more like a movie plot than an actual event: “U.S. officials have described it as a remarkably clumsy but deadly serious operation by Iran’s elite foreign action unit, the Quds Force. Two men were charged in New York federal court Tuesday for allegedly trying to hire a purported Mexican drug cartel member to carry out the assassination with a bomb attack.” The U.S. government insists it has solid evidence that the Iranian government was complicit in the plot.

Despite Iran’s denials, President Obama and other top officials have placed the blame for the attack on Iran,vowing to hold Iran accountable and impose more sanctions. “We believe that even if at the highest levels there was not detailed operational knowledge, there has to be accountability with respect to anybody in the Iranian government engaging in this kind of activity,” Obama said.

The president and others have been vague about their proof that Iran was behind the attack, and anonymous U.S. officials and foreign policy experts have admitted that the plot does not make much sense and that the evidence is spotty. Additionally, the alleged mastermind behind the plot is a used-car salesman without apparent experience, intelligence, or motive.

Even though these factors should raise suspicions, Vice President Joe Biden said that “nothing has been taken off the table” in terms of America’s possible response to the alleged plot.

Not everyone is as willing to accept the government’s version and condone their reaction without learning more evidence. Glenn Greenwald wrote that people have been too quick to blindly accept the government’s account of the events while ignoring problems with the story. Furthermore, even if the government has conclusive evidence supporting its claims, the reaction to the plot has been hypocritical given the United States’ penchant for committing assassinations in other countries, often with “collateral damage.” He raises the recent instances of the assassination of Osama bin Laden, which was carried out without the permission of Pakistan, and the questionable killing of Anwar Awlaki on Yemeni soil.

The ironies here are so self-evident it’s hard to work up the energy to point them out. Outside of Pentagon reporters, Washington Post Editorial Page Editors, and Brookings “scholars,” is there a person on the planet anywhere who can listen with a straight face as drone-addicted U.S. Government officials righteously condemn the evil, illegal act of entering another country to commit an assassination? Does anyone, for instance, have any interest in finding out who is responsible for the spate of serial murders aimed at Iran’s nuclear scientists? Wouldn’t people professing to be so outraged by the idea of entering another country to engage in assassination be eager to get to the bottom of that?

Other people believe the government’s assertion that Iran is to blame, and they are pushing for more severe punishments. The neoconservative Heritage Foundation reacted with their typical reasoned argument, even though no one was injured in the clumsy incident:

By brazenly planning to assassinate the Saudi ambassador — an act of war — the Iranian regime has raised uncomfortable questions about whether a nuclear Iran could be contained or deterred. Even if one chooses to interpret the assassination attempt as a rogue operation, as many apologists for Iran are sure to do, it is the Revolutionary Guards that will have their fingers on the nuclear trigger by virtue of their control over Iran’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.

The Obama Administration could potentially take drastic measures and use the incident as an excuse to exercise military force against Iran. But if we learned anything from the costly Iraq War, it should be that Americans must demand evidence and explanations from the government before rushing into an armed conflict.