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Showing Original Post only (View all)Ebola patients, US citizens, are being evacuated to the U.S. from Liberia. [View all]
Last edited Thu Jul 31, 2014, 08:48 PM - Edit history (1)
I hope we know what to do with them when they get here. At least one of them, Dr. Brantley, contracted the illness despite being vigilant with all standard safety measures.
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/07/31/health/ebola-outbreak/
(CNN) -- A U.S.-contracted medical charter flight left Cartersville, Georgia, Thursday to evacuate two American charity workers in Liberia infected with Ebola hemorrhagic fever, a source told CNN.
A CNN crew saw the airplane, a long-range business jet, depart shortly after 5 p.m. ET. The plane matched the description provided by the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
It was not immediately known when the two Americans -- identified as Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol -- would arrive in the United States, or where the plane would land.
At least one of the two will be taken to a hospital at Emory University, near the headquarters of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, hospital officials told CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
Brantly and Writebol are described in stable but grave condition, with both reportedly taking a turn for the worse overnight, according to statements released Thursday by the faith-based charity Samaritan's Purse.
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And a bit of context about the CDC:
http://www.newsweek.com/recent-cdc-anthrax-and-smallpox-mishaps-signal-potential-dangers-259923
In June, the CDC revealed what it represented to be an accidental anthrax mishap. But in the investigation that followed, shocking conditions at federal laboratories were revealed. Long-forgotten smallpox samples had been discovered in a storage room at the National Institutes of Healths Food Administration campus in Bethesda, Maryland, and cross-contamination of harmless samples with a potentially deadly flu virus had occurred in the CDCs infectious disease lab. Scientists had been transferring dangerous materials in Ziploc bags and using expired disinfectants. There were accounts of torn gloves, duct tape repairs, keys left in storage locks, unauthorized employees wandering into off-limit areas, and exhaust hoods blowing fumes in the wrong direction.
Americans should worrynot just about these labs working with select agents, but also, as as Dr. Nancy Kingsbury, managing director, Government Accountability Office (GAO) noted, about the other, lesser pathogens, not on the VIP list so to speak, that could nonetheless also cause great harm if mishandled.