Dive Brief:
- Emory University Hospital said that it expects to receive an Ebola patient "within the next several days." The patient will arrive on a specially-equipped aircraft and will be kept in the hospital's isolation unit, developed in collaboration with the CDC. Officials have not offered an explanation as to who the patient is or why he or she is being brought to the United States for care.
- The CDC, which is head-quartered in Atlanta, "has devised plans and equipment to [transport the patient] safely. Patients were evacuated in similar ways during the SARS outbreak in 2003 and in cases involving drug resistant tuberculosis in 2007," said a State Department spokesperson.
- According to the hospital, staff train throughout the year "in the specific and unique protocols and procedures necessary to treat and care for this type of patient."
Dive Insight:
The isolation facility at Emory is one of four of its kind in the nation. The unit is specially built to contain this kind of disease and according to officials, there is little risk that the disease will spread to the general U.S. population. The disease does not spread as easily as the common flu or cold: "It really requires exposure to blood and bodily fluids," said Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and senior associate at the UPMC Center for Health Security.