Ebola Horror: How HAZMAT Suits Themselves Can Contaminate Medical Workers

Breitbart ^ | 10 Sep 2014 post | Frances Martel

[exDemMom]

In the goobermint labs where they research deadly organisms don’t they have decontamination showers that bathe the outside of the suits in chemicals?

I wonder if they have these showers at Emory and at the other 3 sites.

I think they do. The shower is an important part of infection control.

[exDemMom]

Wait, I heard Authorities in America say the Ebola Virus is not airborne so therefore there is nothing to worry about.

So they really don't need these hazmat suits at all then...

Right?

It is spread by direct contact with infected patients or their bodily fluids. Since medical providers tend to touch their patients a lot and can be splashed with infected fluids, they need to be completely covered.

People who aren't touching the patients or aren't within range of splashing fluids are fine. Humans are not known to exhale aerosolized virus.

[greeneyes]

The decontamination procedure that I read about for Level 4 containment, talked about a chamber that used a solution and then a chamber that used UV light before they went into a chamber to take off the suits.

IIRC, they are using a bleach solution in the areas where the current outbreaks are. I think they are also reusing some of the gear, after it has been washed in bleach, which sounds like an exposure just waiting to happen.

[greeneyes]

Also interesting, since a good many people on FR have insisted that it is not an air borne transmission. Making a distinction between that and fomites or droplets.

A distinction that is not generally made by most people to begin with.

[steve86]

The suits do not get “deconned.”

I have seen the medical workers still in the suits being sprayed down with sodium hypochlorite solution. This probably is a desirable procedure prior to removing the suit.

[21twelve]

I recall the one time having to work on an old, defunct landfill with a respirator and tyvek suit on in the summer on the east coast. HOT!

After I saw some guy walking his dog in the same area as I was working, I would sneak gulps of fresh air and try to wipe off the fog from the face mask. Probably not a huge deal at an old landfill.

A big no-no in an Ebola isolation tent.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

I’m reading “The Hot Zone” right now. Even in 1989, staff were washed with decon fluid for seven minutes after leaving the infected zone. Wikipedia says “the entrance and exit of a level four biolab will contain multiple showers, a vacuum room, an ultraviolet light room, and other safety precautions designed to destroy all traces of the biohazard.”

But it doesn’t take many virus particles to get infected.

[driftdiver]

These people are trying to perform surgery and all those other medical things under those conditions. Pretty rough.