You know, Sr. Poop, since you have absolutely no evidence to back up your assertion that this is going to spiral out of control, maybe you should back off the needlessly confrontational tone.
Do you have evidence that its not?
The fact is that thousands of people come through hospitals everyday with many easily infectious diseases: influenza, pneumonia,
C. Diff., bacterial, viral, protozoal, and others. Yes, nurses, physicians, and pharmacists do contract some of these while they are in contact with patients. The fact remains, one person whom has been taken care of at the hospital that has died and already a hospital staff member has contracted Ebola. This person used all precautions possible,and yet, they have now tests positive.
You people talk about how hard it is to contract? Its not hard at all. The only reason that Ebola never spread like this since its discovery in 79 was because it only occurred in small African villages. Once one village member contracted it the rest of the village was quarantined until everyone died and the virus died along with them.
Look... I'm not trying to fear monger, I'm just trying to get people to start taking this seriously and stop acting like they know everything about this virus and have some respect for it... we don't know shit. When do Dr.'s make mistakes? When they lose their fear and respect for continued learning and understanding.
Facts: Ebola leads to major organ failure (liver) --> leads to bleeding due to the loss of clotting factor production --> leads to death.
In order to stop this type of massive bleeding you need to have a transfusion protocol that provides PRBC (packed red blood cells), clotting factors, IV vitamin K (phytonadione), IV fluid for volume support, and pressors to help increase blood flow to the heart and brain and support blood pressure.
Thats it! Only support. There is not drug, vaccine, antibiotic to stop the infection.
Now, most hospitals carry 5 to 10 sets of clotting factors and costs thousands of dollars per dose. They just can't economically carry very many of these. These are also on hand in case someone comes in due to a subarachnoid hemorrhage in a patient the either had a fall and is on warfarin and has an elevated INR or because they are on dabigatran and are too high of a dose with renal insufficiency.
Imagine a small outbreak of Ebola occurs... People come in with hematemesis, bloody diarrhea, and blood oozing out of every other orifice in their body. Fluids are going to be every where, it will get on everything. People are going to get infected because they don't know haw to handle this virus.
They have never come in contact with it in their lives... ever.
Now it starts to spread. But this nice 50 to 60% mortality rate you hear about in this great and advanced healthcare system of the United Stated will dramatically increase to 85 to 95% as the small supply of blood, clotting factors, and IV K disappear in the blink of an eye. There is no more care for you... only death.
The fact is that our hospitals are not ready for something like this. Don't delude yourself into thinking we are.
Just wait for when some small rural community hospital gets its first patient... Some kid flies back from Africa after a mission helping some village with his microbiologic back ground. Flies back into Boston and takes a bus to Springfield MA. This kid goes back his dorm and begins to shows signs and symptoms, gets scared to let anyone know and thus exposes everyone at the dorm. Eventually, he gets a ride to a small community hospital where he is now in the ED with bodily fluids all over the place. And thus a major outbreak starts but you can't quarantine the small city until everyone dies. Its not a good situation here people.
