Posted on 04/13/2005 1:05:03 PM PDT by EBH
Health teams covered from head to toe to avoid contamination Zoe Young of the medical NGO, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), is keeping a web diary for the BBC News Website from Angola as she helps with the emergency response to an outbreak of the deadly Marburg virus. Here she describes her first two days of work in the town of Uige in the north-east of the country, which has so far been the town worst hit by the epidemic.
Sunday 10 April I am absolutely exhausted. Today I went into the isolation centre in Uige hospital for the first time. There are two zones, the low risk and the high risk. In the low-risk zone I changed into a medical scrub suit and put on some white boots and thin blue gloves. Then I put on the next layer of protective clothing.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
Ping
Viral hemorrhagic fevers suck.
Awe inspiring story.
You just beat me to the punch. I had the source copied and was ready to post.
I have a great deal of respect and admiration for all of the health workers volunteering to aid these unfortunate souls.
As a person who works within the Health & Safety world, donning and doffing gear is the most important things these folks can do for themselves and the public. I don't do medical stuff, but I've been in my fair share of Level A & B and it isn't fun. I hope they monitoring themselves for heat stress cause I'd sure hate to see one of them go down in that situation. It'd take too long long to get'em out.
At least in my work we have a little leeway if someone goes down.
Ping
And as for this:
So people are staying at home to die and being cared for by their relatives
What a tragedy. Some say that there will not be a big jump in the numbers, but when you read something like that, it's hard not to expect whole families to be wiped out soon.
Some won't be found as they have fled the area after the death. They've gone into the jungles/bush to get away from this horrible disease. Little do they know...
Wow, that's an interesting read. The health care workers are not having fun.
Not my idea of a "Place to visit before I die"...scratch that one off the list.
These poor people///
I would be more comforted to read something about how this disease is being contained.
I have not yet seen any articles where people in the affected area are kept from traveling outside the area - if it gets loose in the general public - it will race like wildfire
It IS loose in the general public. No one who is following this thinks the government of Angola has a lid on it. The bug is out of the box in a good portion of Angola, and possibly elsewhere as well.
Just hope and pray it is genetically unstable enough to burn itself out naturally, and soon.
It would seems there is no one left that does their job right first and foremost - too much political correctness to worry about first - and in cases like this, there isn't time for it. The barn door is shut too late...
Pray hard.
Glad I live in the woods -
I have a feeling that the horror of Luanda will finally
wake the world up to the real nightmare, it's happening
before our eyes.
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