Nurse Kaci Hickox has been put under mandatory quarantine by the state of New Jersey after returning from helping Ebola patients in Africa. New Jersey, New York and Illinois are forcing health workers returning from Africa to be isolated. I think this is a gross over reaction and is a decision based on fear and not scientific facts. It is like what they say about war: The first casualty is truth. The truth is that the nurse is not sick as Chris Christie claimed. She is also not contagious because she does not have symptoms nor fever. She has been tested twice for Ebola and has been negative both times. All these facts are ignored and she is being held against her will.
Chris Christie is not protecting the public by making false statements about a person he knows nothing about. He is causing more fear and hysteria among the public with his order. He is not a doctor, he has no right to make medical decisions against the advice of infectious disease experts. These mandatory quarantines only fan more fear. Already health care workers at Bellevue Hospital, where Dr. Craig Spencer is being treated, are being refused food service! By the way, I think the only person who may have reason to worry about getting infected by Dr. Spencer would be his girl friend. Again, this disease require extreme close contact with the patient or his body fluid. Nobody at the bowling ally or subway is at risk. Even Duncan, the patient who died, did not infect anyone from his family. This is even after his treatment was long delayed.
The flu, pneumonia, meningitis, etc. all are way more likely to kill in this country than Ebola. So let's get our appropriate vaccines and practice good hygiene. That's the message politicians should get out. They should not spread false rumors and fan fear.
Sunday, October 26, 2014
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Well, I agree with you that the Ebola scare is fueled by the media. However, is there really a test that can be given to see if one has Ebola? And if there is, is it 100% accurate?
ReplyDeleteMy concern is that I keep hearing this 21 day period. Shouldn't we be testing every individual who has come in contact with someone who had Ebola then? Was the doctor who came back tested?
To me, the health care professionals need to be the most cautious. I realize the importance of their work, but their job is not done unless they can be certain they are not contagious to anyone else. I would be saying this with any disease. Flu included!
-LB0AYM
Let me see if I can make things a little bit more clear. The incubation period for the virus is 21 days. During this time the virus is not doing anything in the body and thus the person is not contagious. But the virus can attack sooner so as soon as the patient has a fever or symptoms, he needs to be isolated. The tests are accurate but they detect the body's antibodies against the virus. In other word, you know the virus is there because your defense system is in action against it. This varies from person to person. Generally if the virus is in incubation, antibody is not going to be detected. That is why giving the tests in airport is not a good idea if the person has no symptoms or fever. It is probably going to be negative and you are wasting $60-100 a test. Plus you need medical personnel to do the test and get rid of the medical waste. A negative test may even give false security to a person. So I think checking the temperature and giving info to what to do when symptomatic is the best right now. Obviously medical personnel returning should know what to do already, so without symptoms there is no reason to quarantine them.
ReplyDeleteThere are some other tests that may detect the virus directly in which case it may be positive before the virus attacks. But those would depend if the virus load is great in the patient and is still only positive 2-3 days before symptoms start. So health workers probably were given such tests just in case if it can give them a heads up. So the nurse is not out of the woods but she is not contagious to anyone right now. So at least they released her already. I think that is the right thing to do.
I am sure this makes it clear as mud, right?