Mary Katherine Ham:
The largest outbreak in history continues unabated in West Africa. Three Americans have been infected, one of whom was the man who died upon his arrival in Nigerian megacity Lagos last week. Now, Emory University hospital in Atlanta will be taking the transfer of an Ebola patient, reportedly an American aid worker:
Emory University Hospital has been told a patient with the Ebola virus will be transferred to its hospital in Atlanta.
According to the Associated Press, the patient is an American aid worker, although the individual’s identity was not released due to privacy laws.
Emory says it has a special isolation unit to treat patients who are exposed to serious infectious diseases which is physically separate from other patient areas at the hospital.
Emory’s isolation unit is one of only four such units in the country, according to the hospital, which also said its staff are highly trained in the procedures necessary to care for the patient.
CNN reports indicate the patient coming to Atlanta is likely missionary Nancy Whitebol, but her arrival day is unknown. Both she and Dr. Kent Brantly, affiliated with Samaritan’s Purse, are still alive:
While U.S. officials have remained mum on the issue, a source told CNN that a medical charter flight left from Cartersville, Georgia, on Thursday evening.
A CNN crew saw the plane 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 by the source 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.
The patient will be cared for in an isolation unit at the hospital that is separate from patient areas, Gupta said.
With the return of Brantly and Writebol to the United States, it will be the first time that patients diagnosed with Ebola will be known to be in the country.
Brantly and Writebol are described as being in stable-but-grave conditions, with both reportedly taking a turn for the worse overnight, according to statements released Thursday by the faith-based charity Samaritan’s Purse.
Emphasis mine. Is this something the president is reading about in the papers or is someone—anyone—making sure there’s a protocol for containing this kind of thing that’s a little more rock solid than the one that left smallpox hanging out in a minifridge for 50 years? Sure, the CDC is in Atlanta, but the CDC and the other federal agencies in charge of super-deadly infectious diseases have lost control of several deadly diseases in the past several months. I’m not a big fearmonger when it comes to public health—most of those articles about buttchugging and the cinnamon dare are nonsense—but this is a rather more serious threat and there’s plenty of recent evidence that the federal agencies in charge of such things aren’t great at being in charge of such things. Here’s hoping Emory will play point on this. It sounds as if they will, which sounds safer to me.