Now is not the time to panic Guest columnist, The Yellowknifer Wednesday, October 22, 2014 It reads like the script of a horror show. The Ebola virus as gotten loose in West Africa and countries are being devastated. Traditional disease containment efforts have not worked. Past outbreaks were kept to small rural populations. This time, it has gotten into general populations. This was due to slow response by the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) and the countries it asked for assistance. At this time, about 4,500 people have died and about 50,000 are infected. The WHO project as many as one million Africans will have the disease by the end of January 2015. There are reported cases in Spain and the U.S. At this time, those reports are limited to two deaths and three infected but there are numerous others being observed. This is turning into an epidemic. One has to have contact with an infected person or animal to catch the virus. In Africa, fruit bats and monkeys can carry the pathogen. Pets can do the same. Dogs have been known to eat vomit off the street from a sick person. Contact is considered three feet, the distance infected snot can fly from a sneeze or a cough. The disease does not aerosolize- meaning it wont hang in the air as micro droplets for an extended period of time. The virus can survive on a dry surface for a couple of hours and on moist room temperature surface for a couple of days. The incubation period (time it takes for the disease in the body to mature into an infectious stage) for the disease is two to 21 days with an average being 5.8 days. Health inspectors look for symptoms like a fever of at least 101.4 degrees Fahrenheit. The potential to spread the sickness may not happen for more than two weeks after coming into contact with an infected person. Per capita, Yellowknifers travel a lot. When they come back from strange places, they bring back strange bugs. Former NWT Justice Minister Michael Ballantyne had his liver destroyed by something he caught on a holiday in warm places. If there is any chance of Ebola coming to this country, territory, or city, we must first understand this disease and then prepare for it. Measures taken when we have had a suspected outbreak will be too late! The measures have to be taken before this happens. The NWT not having enough medical resources is not a good reason to potentially kill half the population that gets the disease. This would not help our NWT population grow. Statistics regarding Ebola-stricken people say that in North America, one out of two infected with the disease will die while in Africa, seven out of 10 who contract the disease will die. Failure of the health care system becomes a vector for the disease. Now is the time to panic, not after it happens. What is our standard of preparedness? We should be panicking about leadership, not the disease. When it is said Ebola is not a problem here, the disease will be misdiagnosed when it appears for the first time. Then the infected population will already be in the fan! The misdiagnosis, then treatment, then death of Thomas Duncan who had come to the United States from Liberia via Belgium at Texas Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas in the last month has shaken the whole country. Seventy-eight hospital workers are being quarantined from the public, two nurses are already infected and a number of schools closed. Dallas county was discussing a disaster declaration. Further screw-ups, including some by the US Centres for Disease Control, have caused our neighbours to the south more action and panic. Complicated protocols need to be in place with lead hands to direct and make sure they are adhered to. Where is the centralized coordinated control and direction? This should be federal. First responders, emergency rooms, ICUs, every single health-care worker in this county needs to know what to do. The approach of flu season complicates things because Ebola symptoms are flu-like. Nurses making first contact need to be taught a series of specific questions about recent travel. Health-care workers need immediate access to fully enclosed and air-supplied suits. The air medevac company must be able to supply one protective bubble for the patient and one second bubble for the caregivers separating the plane and pilots from the sickness. The hospital has to decide how to handle the Ebola medicine waste as compared to other medical waste. Where do the daily line-ups of sick people go when Ebola comes to the hospital. The Ebola patient creates a need for a substantial amount of bedding and clothes. Does the hospital have enough stuff? Cleaning companies need to be at the ready equipped and trained to decontaminate the hospital, the aircraft, the home and any other place the Ebola patient may have been. Infrastructure must be in place to determine who the patient had been in contact with and to quarantine those who pose a risk. The safest place to be is suited up at an Ebola centre. My understanding is that those with Doctors without Borders who know the disease and are equipped, have now had 26 nurses and doctors die in West Africa. The experts have not answered all the questions about this disease yet. Being aloof and dismissive only creates a false sense of security and more danger. Once an individual has gotten Ebola and is isolated in an intensive care unit, a negative pressure room, there is not a lot to do but support him or her. The patient would lose five to ten litres or more of fluid daily through mainly vomit and diarrhea. A lot of fluids must be put back in. The heart may develop arrhythmia due to the loss of potassium and electrolytes. This may also cause shock. One Ebola patient in the NWT will constitute a public emergency. Our MLAs, mayors, chiefs and other government experts in all the communities need to look at this now. Where is the control centre in the NWT? Where in Canada? This is not a TV show. This time its for REAL!
Posted on: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 12:32:55 +0000
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