Ebola bungle

The fact that the CDC (and WHO for that matter) say they can stop ebola is rather vain. In fact, vanity is why we are struggling to contain it. WHO constantly brags about how they have stopped every other ebola outbreak and so they will stop this one. That is not very comforting considering they have NEVER stopped an outbreak of ebola in a major urban area. Ebola has never struck a major urban area until now.

In the beginning, WHO bungled by not having the countries shut their borders and control movement within them. As a result, it has spread. Going town-to-town and letting people know the deadliness of the disease while encouraging them to stay in their towns to prevent catching it would have been more helpful. Kind of like how the Cote D'Ivoire did while shutting their borders despite national criticism - there have been 0 cases of ebola in Cote D'Ivoire, even through there is a strain that naturally lives in the animals of the country. Saying that people would have just sneaked across borders is like saying - well if we outlaw marijuana people will just use it anyway (when, as Colorado has found, legalizing it just encourages EVERYONE to use it). Or, if we outlaw stealing, people will just steal anyway. Sorry, reducing movement would have controlled it.

Because of the vanity of the CDC and WHO, they did NOT warn hospitals that people infected with ebola could show up in Western hospitals. No - instead they reassured everyone that the virus was contained and people were screened at airports. (There is a great quote from our President in that link.) They were quick (as were most) to blame the hospital for turning Mr. Duncan away, but let's look more closely at the facts. Mr. Duncan did not appear at the hospital bleeding from every orifice. No, on September 26th - TWO DAYS AFTER SYMPTOMS APPEARED WHEN HE COULD HAVE INFECTED OTHERS - he came to the hospital with a LOW-GRADE fever - ebola symptoms as they were listed at the time were a fever of OVER 101.5 F.

His family says they told medical workers that he was from Liberia twice, but they NEVER suggested to the workers that he might have ebola. I personally have no doubt they knew he had ebola, and they knew he had contacted someone with ebola. Why else would someone quit his job without telling his employer anything - just not show up to work and hop a flight to America on a visa that was applied for months ago but never used. In fact, the reason he had a visa was so that he could see a graduation - the graduation was long over in September - why did he come? No, in my opinion, Mr. Duncan and his family didn't tell the hospital workers because they knew he had lied to get here - if they admitted this in the hospital, that would increase his chances of being prosecuted if he survived.

Had, the CDC let people - especially hospitals -  know that there was a very good chance someone could get around the airport protocol and there was a good chance it could spread here, doctors might have checked Mr. Duncan in right away. Instead, they did what ANY doctor can do - look at the patients symptoms and assess which disease is most likely. From a medical point of view - the patient was not running a fever that was characteristic of ebola and although he came from an ebola infected country, he had undergone screening that should have prevented him from traveling if he had been exposed. Ebola is VERY similar symptomatically to many other tropical diseases - typhoid and malaria are two. Both of these are much more common than ebola and treated with antibiotics.

Two days later, a friend/relative (we never get a straight story about the family-friend situation) noticed that Mr. Duncan had the tell-tale red eyes of ebola. This time he was accepted at the hospital - he finally had classic ebola symptoms, but to be admitted at this stage is a little too late for the patient, in my opinion. The current testing procedure for ebola can take 3 days to confirm it. (This is why Mr. Duncan was admitted on the 28th and it was announced he had ebola on October 1st - wouldn't want to cause a false scare even though he was exhibiting some pretty clear symptoms by this time.) In addition, if the disease has not progressed enough, tests will not be able to detect it.

Now, at this point, Mr. Duncan had symptoms of ebola and it was quickly discovered that yes, he did come in contact with an ebola person in Liberia - in fact many other people who had contact with this woman had already contracted the disease and were dying, too. (I do not agree with the photographer using this girl's pain to showcase this article, but the article is informative.) Still, I am sure the CDC came in and took a blood sample to confirm - unfortunately it seems they did little else. Yes, the began "tracing contacts" but really - they needed to move high-risk people into isolation and clean any area where Mr. Duncan had been. Instead, the spent days tracking down people, merely "told" the family they should stay in (which the family promptly disobeyed and had to eventually be given an official order to stay put), and horror of all horrors - left the family in the disease infested apartment where they continued to be exposed until October 3rd. This disease has a 50% case fatality rate! Why wouldn't they want to prevent exposure?

In addition, instead of moving Mr. Duncan to one of the 4 isolation wards that were designed to deal with dangerous diseases, such as ebola, the CDC said it would be okay for Mr. Duncan to stay in a normal hospital. Normal hospitals assign rooms on availability - unfortunately it took a while for Mr. Duncan to get his own room. But, we are after all the United States - We have the top health care in the world and of course no one is going to get this - the only reason medical workers get sick from ebola in Africa is because the "Africans are dirty." Unfortunately, ebola doesn't take vanity into account.

The CDC was still confident that it had done a "good job" of informing hospitals how to deal with ebola - it probably thought every single doctor in America went to its website, which was less informative that WHO's at the time, and read up on this deadly disease that they did not have to worry about treating because there were airline screening procedures in place to keep ebola patients in Africa. But why wouldn't doctor's do this - after all they have so much free time on their hands, especially when they work in the ER. However, there were not even consistent rules in place for dealing with ebola waste - which meant it piled up a little at the hospital because there was some uncertainty as to which requirement was supposed to be followed.

Now, two healthcare workers have contracted the disease. And the CDC still tries to blame the hospital. Who knows how many more will? Who knows how many people who came in contact with Mr. Duncan will contract it? By this Friday (Oct 17th), 2 - 20 of the people he contacted should have developed it. However, Sunday (Oct. 19th) is the day when everyone will be released from quarantine - except possibly the healthcare workers. The trouble is, his family/friends stayed in the contaminated apartment until October 3rd. They technically could still get ebola until October 24th. Let's hope they don't though, because I am sure after three weeks of taking their temperatures twice a day (more frequently in the beginning because the CDC failed to notify them how often they needed to do it), they will not continue to do so throughout the week. Since the ebola victims seem to develop a low-grade fever before the high one, this could be problematic - how many days would it take after they think they are free and clear to realize they have developed symptoms?

In any case, I have no confidence in the CDC or WHO to protect me from ebola. I would feel safer if it were the Plague - at least we have antibiotics for that.