Potential Ebola Patient Treated at Boston Hospital
Ebola Czar boasts of “tremendous progress” in the fight against virus.
Has anyone else noticed that since Ferguson hit the news, there has been a lot less press attention paid to America’s favorite virus?
When checking the status of the epidemic, I discovered that there is another potential Ebola patient in this country.
Massachusetts General Hospital is treating a patient suspected of having contracted the Ebola virus, Public Affairs Officer Noah Brown has confirmed to Boston.com.
Dr. Paul Biddinger, Director Of Emergency Preparedness at MGH, said the patient involved in the suspected Ebola case meets the CDC definition of a “person under investigation” to possibly have the ebola virus.
“This definition involves the possibility of travel to where Ebola is present, the possibility of exposure to that virus, and symptoms that are consistent with that virus,” Biddinger said at a press conference Tuesday evening.
The patient is in stable condition and good spirits, according to Biddinger. He declined to answer specific questions about the patient—including travel history, potential exposure to others, and location in the hospital—citing an inability to comment on individual patient details. Biddiger did say, though, that there is not a reason for panic.
“We feel extremely confident that all of our patients, all of our staff, all of our visitors are completely safe,” he said.
Biddinger did not give an exact timetable for results, but said a diagnosis with a definitive yes or no could take several days. Preliminary tests results will come back in a staggered fashion—some as early as tomorrow—but multiple tests might be needed before the official diagnosis.
And while that case is now being covered by the press, investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson indicates that over 1,400 people in this country are being monitored for signs of the disease.
The killer virus Ebola may not be front and center in the news, but it’s still in the forefront of efforts by health officials nationwide. As of today, more than 1,400 people in 44 states in the U.S. are being actively monitored by state and local health departments after returning from West Africa. The good news is that no new cases have been reported in the U.S. since Oct. 23.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, which provided the figure,
“They are being monitored because they came from one of the four countries with ongoing Ebola outbreaks.”
Responding to a public outcry, the Department of Homeland Security began, on Oct. 22, requiring all U.S. bound passengers from the primary Ebola-infected West African nations to arrive at one of five U.S. airports with enhanced screening.
Ebola Czar Ron Klain managed to keep this information under wraps until now, so by the Obama administration’s standard, he is a raging success. Those 1,400 people should be heartened by Klain’s recent report that more hospitals are equipped to handle the virus.
The Obama administration boasted Tuesday it has made “tremendous progress” in the fight against Ebola since the first U.S. case landed in Dallas about two months ago, dramatically increasing the number of hospitals and labs to treat patients and test for the deadly virus that has killed about 5,000 in West Africa.
Ron Klain, the country’s Ebola “czar,” reported to the White House that hospital capacity increased from eight beds in three facilities to 53 beds at 35 designated Ebola treatment centers across the country.
Forty-two labs in three dozen states can test for Ebola now, compared to 13 labs in 13 states in August.
He also noted the completion of phase one clinical trials for the first vaccine to treat Ebola, a development President Obama is set to address from the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. later on Tuesday.
Perhaps if the Obama administration can keep the attention on Ferguson for the next two years, much less attention will be paid by the media to policy glitches that necessitated such a vast expansion in medical resources to contain the spread of a hemorrhagic fever once confined to Africa.
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Comments
We are monitoring a LOT of potential ebola cases in this country.
http://news.bestoftampabay.com/report-1400-people-in-us-being-monitored-for-ebola/
I think that keeping the attention on Ferguson will do the most damage to the Democrat brand in 2016.
An extremely promising development is a virus filer from
Aethlon Medical, the filter is used with a dialysis machine. In a trial, it removed almost all the virus load from a patient’s blood, leaving a only a small amount for treatment. The vaccine process usually takes some time to test, the filter should be safer.
Apparently Malaria – not Ebola. http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2014/12/mgh_patient_tests_positive_for_malaria_negative_for_ebola
Under Obama-rKlein, I wonder if ebola patients and their families have to sign consent to stay silent agreements in order to get treatment at the best centers for treatment. That would be consistent with modus Benghazi.