Just two weeks before a diagnosis of Ebola in U.S. hit the news, local doctors were quietly testing a patient for the deadly virus at UVA’s infectious disease clinic. The test results were negative, but that doesn’t mean the threat of Ebola is something they’re taking lightly.
In light of the recent epidemic of the deadly virus in West Africa and the diagnosis and subsequent death of a Liberian man in Texas, medical experts in Virginia have taken steps to help hospitals like UVA and Martha Jefferson prepare to respond to and manage the virus if it were to make its way here.
“I think the possibility of Ebola causing a sustained outbreak in the U.S. is extremely low,” said UVA epidemiologist Costi Sifri, noting that Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and pandemic influenza are more of a current threat. “But it certainly now is tangible, and we have the infrastructure to do the necessary things to prevent person-to-person transmission.”
The Ebola virus is originally transmitted to people from wild animals, and it spreads person-to-person through direct contact with bodily fluids. The incubation period, or the time between infection and the onset of symptoms, is two to 21 days, and patients with the virus are only contagious when they’re sick.
Sifri said the UVA Infectious Disease Clinic admits patients through one of three avenues: from another doctor’s office, an outpatient clinic, or the emergency room. Using U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidance, Sifri said all three departments have been updating their processes of screening patients, particularly when it comes to travel histories. If a patient who has recently returned from a country affected by the epidemic—Guinea, Sierra Leone, or Liberia—exhibits symptoms like a fever of 101.5 or higher, vomiting, or diarrhea, the emergency response would be activated and the patient would be moved immediately into isolation.
“We would plan on admitting the patient to a limited set of rooms in the hospital,” Sifri said. “We have a designated staff who are willing to participate in the care of those patients.”
Once the patient is isolated, medical staff in hazmat suits and masks would closely monitor the patient’s condition and send a blood sample to the state medical lab in Richmond to test for the Ebola virus. The recent red-flag case turned into a test run for how they’d treat an actual Ebola patient, and Sifri said the medical teams are educated and prepared to handle the worst-case scenario.
“If you follow the recommendations that our professional societies and government organizations put out for understanding how to prevent transmitting disease organisms, then I think that concern for transmission is essentially eliminated or really greatly minimized,” he said, adding that he’d never felt personally afraid or threatened by viruses he’s encountered in the clinic.
UVA’s Center for Global Health director and infectious disease specialist Rebecca Dillingham, echoing sentiments released by the CDC and World Health Organization, urges travelers to avoid the areas of the world where Ebola has been spreading.
“All of those countries are difficult to visit on a good day,” she said, noting that civil wars and extreme poverty have plagued the areas before Ebola broke out. “Unless you’re an infectious disease specialist who’s trained to respond to the epidemic or you have some other particular skills as part of an organized response, there’s no good reason to go to those areas right now.”
