Nursing and the Ebola Virus

[0.adamantite]

For those of us in unaffected countries, are you concerned about the ebola virus spreading? Would you care for ebola patients? I live in an area with a very high density of African immigrants and come into contact with these individuals regularly. We have a lot of African immigrants who bring back tuberculosis from their home countries and at my unit we end up caring for them. We take care of a lot of rare infectious diseases. I was reading an article and it dawned on me how plausible it would be for me to encounter this virus. And I admit, it's terrifying and I might refuse that assignment. Many healthcare workers in Africa are dying because of caring for the ill.

[MassED, BSN, RN]

The CDC is a reputable source. So were the scientific journals we used in my Micro class of which I took just last semester. We spent 3 weeks on Ebola. It's not some "mysterious disease to which we know almost nothing about". We know how it's contracted, it's NOT AIRBORN. There are plenty of studies that have proven that and despite all the fear mongering it simply hasn't mutated to that. Ebola is a slow mutating virus. The faster a disease kills you, the slower it mutates! Seriously I am starting to wonder if ANYONE has taken Micro!! They took all the precautions? SO WHAT?! Did they really? Everyone takes precautions all the time and still things go wrong. And how do you know they took ALL precautions ALL the time? How do you know WHAT precautions they took? Some nurses take shortcuts all the time. They get comfortable in what they are doing and they overlook or they forget. Just because YOU WOULDN'T, doesn't mean someone else didn't. And even so, what standard those precautions are? All this talk about not knowing anything about the virus or not knowing what it does or how it does this is absolute crap. We know what it does to the body, we know how to avoid infection, and what precautions to use to NOT get it. WE know how to quarantine and stop the spread of infection. WE, as in, the medical professions of the US. What's mind boggling is that some people are completely convinced that Ebola is going to spread like a plague across the US... WE ARE NOT some back washed third world country. That is the very reason these two people were brought to the US. Their chance of surviving the disease is immensely better here than it is there. There chance of infecting others and spreading it here? Likely so negligible that it's irrelevant.

Sanitation and infection control in Africa are NEAR IMPOSSIBLE. Have you ever gone to a developing country? Have you ever seen the lack of anything resembling modern sanitation they have? Limited running water and toilets? Have you bothered to even LOOK at the places where ebola is currently spreading, at how these people live? What their believes and culture in caring for ill family are? It's certainly not how you live. There are reasons they are having difficulty controlling the disease and it's not because of the virus itself. It's the culture of the people living with the disease. We feel ill, we go to the doctor, or the hospital. We don't want until we're bleeding out of our eyes and all over our family members to think that something is wrong with us. When a sick person dies, we don't steal the body and take it home to prepare it for burial ourselves. We don't storm into hospitals with guns in the middle of the night and run off with an infected family member because "doctors are demons". How many people were infected by that family doing that?! How many people are infected because the 3 year old has to pay respects to her aunt by cleaning her dead body?

Those things simply wouldn't happen here. It's not all about the virus... it's about the environment which the virus exists. To think that the same thing going on in Africa could happen in the US is just plain stupid. At this point, all this thread is good for is amusement of how paranoid and stupid people become from fear ("A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals..." go ahead, name the source.). I'm glad I brought popcorn. I seriously hope a lot of you have never bothered to check out the "Monster's Inside Me" series on Animal Planet... there are far worse things in your back yard and you're worried about Ebola.

The CDC is a government agency. Do you believe everything your government hands to you? Do you have healthy skepticism? NSA? Snowden? Think about it. Honesty is not something we can expect from the government, thus an agency within said government. They will do all they can to prevent widespread panic. Of course we understand infection control. None of what you wrote is the issue. Influenza kills. Ebola kills. Influenza has a vaccine that is updated yearly. Ebola?

To address whomever posted that Ebola CANNOT go airborne... really? So saliva, mucous and secretions that are cough/sneezed do not go airborne?? Really.

[FLAlleycat]

. . . going to spread like a plague across the US... WE ARE NOT some back washed third world country."

And even in back-washed, third world countries, ebola has not spread like the plague . . . why anyone would think it would here is mind-boggling! There appears to be a LOT of mistrust of what is being relayed by CDC, a US entity. But WHO is relaying the exact same info. Regardless of either, everyone agrees ebola is contagious. So, duh, put on PPE. Both CDC and WHO state a person can be infected but cannot spread the disease until they are symptomatic. At least we have a warning . . . gee, I better put on my PPE. It has been a long while since microbiology but I still know routes of transmission and how to protect myself . . . and even if I did't trust CDC (but, I do) or media (well, hell, who would media), I do trust WHO.

[imintrouble, BSN, RN]

The CDC is a reputable source. So were the scientific journals we used in my Micro class of which I took just last semester. We spent 3 weeks on Ebola. It's not some "mysterious disease to which we know almost nothing about". We know how it's contracted, it's NOT AIRBORN. There are plenty of studies that have proven that and despite all the fear mongering it simply hasn't mutated to that. Ebola is a slow mutating virus. The faster a disease kills you, the slower it mutates! Seriously I am starting to wonder if ANYONE has taken Micro!! They took all the precautions? SO WHAT?! Did they really? Everyone takes precautions all the time and still things go wrong. And how do you know they took ALL precautions ALL the time? How do you know WHAT precautions they took? Some nurses take shortcuts all the time. They get comfortable in what they are doing and they overlook or they forget. Just because YOU WOULDN'T, doesn't mean someone else didn't. And even so, what standard those precautions are? All this talk about not knowing anything about the virus or not knowing what it does or how it does this is absolute crap. We know what it does to the body, we know how to avoid infection, and what precautions to use to NOT get it. WE know how to quarantine and stop the spread of infection. WE, as in, the medical professions of the US. What's mind boggling is that some people are completely convinced that Ebola is going to spread like a plague across the US... WE ARE NOT some back washed third world country. That is the very reason these two people were brought to the US. Their chance of surviving the disease is immensely better here than it is there. There chance of infecting others and spreading it here? Likely so negligible that it's irrelevant.

Sanitation and infection control in Africa are NEAR IMPOSSIBLE. Have you ever gone to a developing country? Have you ever seen the lack of anything resembling modern sanitation they have? Limited running water and toilets? Have you bothered to even LOOK at the places where ebola is currently spreading, at how these people live? What their believes and culture in caring for ill family are? It's certainly not how you live. There are reasons they are having difficulty controlling the disease and it's not because of the virus itself. It's the culture of the people living with the disease. We feel ill, we go to the doctor, or the hospital. We don't want until we're bleeding out of our eyes and all over our family members to think that something is wrong with us. When a sick person dies, we don't steal the body and take it home to prepare it for burial ourselves. We don't storm into hospitals with guns in the middle of the night and run off with an infected family member because "doctors are demons". How many people were infected by that family doing that?! How many people are infected because the 3 year old has to pay respects to her aunt by cleaning her dead body?

Those things simply wouldn't happen here. It's not all about the virus... it's about the environment which the virus exists. To think that the same thing going on in Africa could happen in the US is just plain stupid. At this point, all this thread is good for is amusement of how paranoid and stupid people become from fear ("A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals..." go ahead, name the source.). I'm glad I brought popcorn. I seriously hope a lot of you have never bothered to check out the "Monster's Inside Me" series on Animal Planet... there are far worse things in your back yard and you're worried about Ebola.

I was making myself crazy trying to respond to this very long opinionated post.

So I just picked the thing that bothered me most.

It wasn't being called stupid.

It wasn't suggesting American health care workers in Africa might have contracted Ebola by being sloppy.

It wasn't the assertion that Americans always go to the doctor or ER when we are sick. That was extremely hard to ignore. Of course we do.

It wasn't sneering at me, and suggesting I didn't take micro.

Oddly enough it was completely dismissing a "third world country" as ignorant and insignificant. Somehow that feels a little ethnocentric. I DID take sociology.

[macawake, MSN]

The CDC is a government agency. Do you believe everything your government hands to you? Do you have healthy skepticism? NSA? Snowden? Think about it. Honesty is not something we can expect from the government, thus an agency within said government. They will do all they can to prevent widespread panic. Of course we understand infection control. None of what you wrote is the issue. Influenza kills. Ebola kills. Influenza has a vaccine that is updated yearly. Ebola?

To address whomever posted that Ebola CANNOT go airborne... really? So saliva, mucous and secretions that are cough/sneezed do not go airborne?? Really.

(Bold is mine, it's the parts I'm responding to.)

I’d say that preventing widespread panic is a worthwhile goal, especially since that panic would be unfounded.

Are you operating under the assumption that every single bacterial/viral/fungal disease in existence is airborne simply because human beings have the ability to sneeze? I really don’t understand the point you are attempting to make.

There are many ways an infectious disease can potentially spread. Person-to-person contact/exchange of bodily fluids, droplet spread (requires close proximity), airborne transmission (seen with infectious agents that can travel long distances and remain suspended in the air for an extended period of time), contaminated objects, vector-borne disease, food and drinking water, animal bites and zoonosis, soil or water containing infectious organisms. I’ve probably forgotten a few.

Anyway, not all infectious diseases spread via all these routes. It varies depending on the disease. I’ve seen no evidence that transmission/infection of the Ebola virus is airborne.

[Miss.LeoRN]

I'm just going to find a brick wall, wonder how some people even passed some of their classes in school, and eat my popcorn.

[elusive_design]

Particulate transmission is different than airborne transmission, a particulate can be airborne but the virus or bacteria contained in the particles do not miraculously escape like they were swimming from alkatraz. This is why I do not go to the hospitals. Also. I have tinfoil hats for sale, 22c each.

[FLAlleycat]

If I took that upon myself to go to that region, knowing what I was getting into - then YES, I would want to keep myself there. This was something they signed up for.

You have "no doubt" about Franklin Graham? Really? Do you know him or that organization? NONE of us know what another would do. Don't let the guise of religion fool you that they make the best decisions for the greatest good. Puullease.

Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. They could be atheists for all I care. I would still be in favor of bringing them home.

[FLAlleycat]

I, for one, am truly astounded by the total lack basic understanding of microbiology re eboli, the transmission of eboli and the protection against eboli by some ?professional nurses (as well as the inability to apply any research or evaluate statistics). At times like this, I wish this were a closed forum so the general public cannot feed into the baseless suppositions (NOT research, NOT knowledge) expressed by some, not only unaware but unwilling to become aware, posters (I cannot say nurses as I don't know if they are or not).

Immortalessence, please pass the popcorn!

[elkpark]

And even in back-washed, third world countries, ebola has not spread like the plague . . . why anyone would think it would here is mind-boggling! There appears to be a LOT of mistrust of what is being relayed by CDC, a US entity. But WHO is relaying the exact same info. Regardless of either, everyone agrees ebola is contagious. So, duh, put on PPE. Both CDC and WHO state a person can be infected but cannot spread the disease until they are symptomatic. At least we have a warning . . . gee, I better put on my PPE. It has been a long while since microbiology but I still know routes of transmission and how to protect myself . . . and even if I did't trust CDC (but, I do) or media (well, hell, who would media), I do trust WHO.

But don't you get it, WHO is part of the conspiracy!!!!!!

[imintrouble, BSN, RN]

If I were at my hospital when Ebola was diagnosed for the first time, I'd probably stay and not go home. Not because it's easily transmitted. Not because I'd automatically be infected. Not because my fellow nurses took short cuts with their application of PPE. I wouldn't risk, however small or insignificant that risk, carrying that disease home to my family.

As much as some posters want to ridicule my concerns as hysterical and unenlightened, I would just say that no risk is small enough to take a chance with those I love.

Now, enjoy your popcorn.

[FLAlleycat]

. . .

Oddly enough it was completely dismissing a "third world country" as ignorant and insignificant. Somehow that feels a little ethnocentric. I DID take sociology.

Huh? Where did he/she do that? Since you did take sociology, then I'm sure you are aware that sociologists emphasize gathering and analysis of evidence about social life in order to develop and enrich our understanding of key social processes in a society. The post illustrates some of the societal practices that have inferred with the containment of ebola in (yes, alas, it's true) these third-world countries. That is FAR from calling these countries ignorant or insignificant.

[FLAlleycat]

If I were at my hospital when Ebola was diagnosed for the first time, I'd probably stay and not go home. Not because it's easily transmitted. Not because I'd automatically be infected. Not because my fellow nurses took short cuts with their application of PPE. I wouldn't risk, however small or insignificant that risk, carrying that disease home to my family.

As much as some posters want to ridicule my concerns as hysterical and unenlightened, I would just say that no risk is small enough to take a chance with those I love.

Now, enjoy your popcorn.

I hope I haven't ridiculed you or anyone for your/their choice NOT to care for an ebola patient. That, to me, is everyone's personal choice. And I, like you, would probably feel more comfortable isolating myself if I did take care of someone with ebola or any short-lived deadly disease because I do not work with ID routinely and may not be as meticulous as they. To me, that doesn't seem hysterical nor unenlightened but cautious.

What does come across as hysterical and unenlightened to me is the expressed assumptions that this disease is going to decimate the US, the world, that it will not and cannot be contained, that Africa is doomed, that CDC is lying, that research is erroneous, that two people brought to US will result in ebola sweeping the nation, etc.