Ebola

Isolate

• Educate staff on proper use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) prior to acquiring the patient. To include donning and doffing. Minimal protection includes gowns, masks, eye protection and gloves which are all fluid resistant.
• Isolate any patient, in a single patient room, who has symptoms of Ebola or has been in contact with someone who has Ebola immediately.
• Bed and pillow should have a plastic cover, and there should be no carpet or upholstered furniture or curtains in the room.
• Dedicated equipment for the patient, not to be used on any other patient
• Dedicated and trained staff only care for the patient, log staff who enter in the room, and no visitors should be allowed in the room.
• High level air filtration system
• Hepa filter individual isolation unit to transport patients
• Decontamination area
• Proper disposal of bodies and body fluids

Diagnose

• Physical symptoms: body aches, head aches, fever, weakness, fatigue, diarrhea, vomitting, abdominal pain and unexplained bleeding
• Laboratory tests: IgM ELISA testing, Polymerase chain reaction, virus isolation, IgM and IgG antibodies
• Having contact with someone who is suspected of having Ebola

Report

• Health care providers are to immediately notify their local health jurisdiction
• Local health jurisdiction then notifies the state
• If in a hospital setting, the hospital infection control department needs to be notified. If in a community setting, notify EMS for immediate transfer to a hospital setting.
• Contact CDC

Trace

• All persons who came in contact with infected person in the past 21 days
• Persons must be identified and isolated if symptomatic

Prevent

• Identifying the resivoir, this includes bats and primates
• Increase public education, to include isolation precautions and reporting symptoms in a timely manner
• Outbreak prevention
• Decontaminate homes and/or rooms, including hospital rooms, where the infected patient resided.
• Have educated burial teams bury the body to avoid family contact with the deceased

References

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2011). Viral Hemorrhagic Fever (VHF) 2011 Case Definition. Retrieved from : https://wwwn.cdc.gov/nndss/conditions/viral-hemorrhagic-fever/case-definiti...
• Johnson, D. W., Sullivan, J. N., Piquette, C. A., Hewlett, A. L., Bailey, K. L., Smith, P. W., & ... Lisco, S. J. (2015). Lessons learned: critical care management of patients with ebola in the United States. Critical Care Medicine, 43(6), 1157-1164 8p. doi:10.1097/CCM.0000000000000935
• Nielsen, C. F., Kidd, S., Sillah, A. M., Davis, E., Mermin, J., & Kilmarx, P. H. (2015). Improving burial practices and cemetery management during an ebola virus disease epidemic - sierra leone, 2014. MMWR: Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report, 64(1), 20-27 8p.
• Spengler, J. R., Ervin, E. D., Towner, J. S., Rollin, P. E., & Nichol, S. T. (2016). Perspectives on West Africa Ebola Virus Disease Outbreak, 2013-2016. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 22(6), 956-963 8p. doi:10.3201/eid2206.160021
• Washington State Department of Health (2016). Viral hemorrhagic fever (Ebola). Retrieved from: http://www.doh.wa.gov/portals/1/documents/5100/420-126-guideline-ebola.pdf
• World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2015). Implementation and management of contact tracing for Ebola virus disease retrieved from: http://www.who.int/csr/resources/publications/ebola/contact-tracing/en/