Hospitals on "High alert"

FYI many hospitals don't have a ventilation system in many areas. I know of one close to me, being in the average ward is like being in a sauna, they refuse to switch on the normal split unit aircons.
 
PeterCH said:
Flanders post made an assumption that Private Hospitals were equipped better to handle these outbreaks. Well most of the best infectious disease specialists
and public health authorities work for the State but anyhow even failing that, it was a private facility which did not contain the outbreak in the first place.

I think the assumption was that rather than a general outbreak occurring with lots of people being affected.
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All I'm saying is that private hospitals (the ones I've seen) maintain an apparently acceptable level of hygiene. Whether or not they're any better equipped to deal with a deadly virus, airborne or otherwise, I wouldn't know. What I do know is that I'd choose private clinic any day rather than face a public hospital let alone one full of patients with this mystery illness.
 
Turiko said:
FYI many hospitals don't have a ventilation system in many areas. I know of one close to me, being in the average ward is like being in a sauna, they refuse to switch on the normal split unit aircons.
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You mean they don't have central air con in at least the passage ways?
Strange, those holes in the celinings must be for what then?

If an employee falls ill and coughs or sneezes all over the place and you
walk past or that gets circulated through the corridor system to you waiting
for your specialist appointment, you'll be exposed.

At this time the greatest chance of meeting an exposed person is at that
particular clinic. That's my main point.
 
Normally a virus like Ebola kills so quickly it does not get the chance to become rampant.
 
BlueCollar said:
Oh ****, I've been in Zambia in the past month.
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:eek:

Don't come near PMB capiche

The chance of you actually having anything is almost zero. If you do start feeling ill it's probably in your head or usual change of season flu. Still you must go have it checked out.
 
arf9999 said:
http://www.mg.co.za/article/2008-10-06-mystery-illness-not-airborne-says-hospital
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Doesn't really explain how the nurse or the cleaner got it. If it's transferred through body fluids I would think its spreads through blood or mucosal contact. Possibly the cleaner and nurse got a splash of body fluids into
their mouth, eyes or raw wound on the skin or via sharps injuries (needle sticks). Alternatively the body fluid
could have become aerosolised - perhaps they had the woman connected to
a ventilator without proper biological filters or they nebulised the woman
(what they do for asthmatics or people in respiratory distress (difficulty breathing)) - that could have been inhaled. Body fluids - eg lung or mouth
secreations aerosolised (turned into fine droplets) this way would seem infectious - after all people have died.

Other alternative is that they people in question ingested (ate) the infectious agent. Lack of handwashing?
That is possible. In which case even a small amount would be enough - maybe via object spread, you wash
your hands but don't wash your pen or your clipboard or the cellphone you use at home and at the patient's
bedside.

There is also a remote possibility that the cleaner died of other causes and
the nurse may have stuck herself with the infectious agent or had
a mucosal splash (eyes, mouth, raw area of injured skin). Still 3 people
die, its difficult for this to be a coincidence.

Still with the escort paramedic, a nurse and a cleaner all dying its hard to believe that this agent is only infectious by 'bodily fluids' and some form
of direct contact. In biology examples of this can be anthrax and
even plague. When plague affects the lungs it can become vaporised
and exhaled and so become infectious via the aerosol route.

Looking at the original presumptive diagnosis of tick bite fever, that could be
a picture in agreement with a bleeding diathesis (ie bleeding problem)
because both can cause skin lesions. A hemorrhagic fever could
present early on as a tick bite fever. However that can be picked up easily on tests [not the actual
virus causing the problem but the fact that the person clotting factors are becoming exhausted and other
substances which indicate clot formation and destruction are present]. Anyway just speculation.

At this stage they haven't even identified it so their guess is just an educated
guess. Hopefully the autopsies will provide more information.
Would also be nice to know what expertise they're bringing in to determine what's going on.

Coindentally there haven't been any reports of similar outbreaks in Zambia.
 
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"The disease is transferable through bodily fluids and is not airborne. We want to ensure that there's no panic in the broader public ... There is no outbreak at the hospital. We are currently don't have patients with the same symptoms," said regional marketing manger Malinda Pelser.
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Alert #1 - what, no doctor prepared to state this publicly? A marketing manager will not do Mediclinic...:rolleyes: marketing of all departments should know this.

Tests were not conclusive of any particular disease, including viral haemorrhagic fevers.
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So if tests are not conclusive, then how can their marketing department conclusively rule out airborne transmission? Serious question, I dont know. And how did all of these people come into contact with one another's bodily fluids then?

Pelser said the cleaner had been off work when she fell sick and the hospital called her home to enquire about her health.

"She fell ill off duty. She had been having problems with her health for months."
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I don't buy it. Their marketing department gets a big fat "FF" for fscking failure...
 
I agree wholeheartedly. Even if the cleaner died of other causes, this still means the nurse and the paramedic died of this disease. That's 3 people dying of an unknown illness
in a region which is rife with serious infectious agents (Ebola, Marburg, Crimean Hemorrghagic Congo Fever, Dengue etc).
 
Natas said:
Mmmm... strange unidentifiable virus... killing people... nobody knows what it is...!! Have any of them become re-animated yet? If they do turn into Zombies I hope that they become "Sean of the Dead" type zombies rather then Rez Evil or 28 days Later type zombies!!!
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:D :D :D
 
This is quiet scary but we have been told not to worry, they are taking this very seriously
 
The first person was a young healthy white woman, the Paramedic was a also a healthy white man, the nurse was a black lady. So this virus is not limited to black people as some people have been speculating. These people have been active among all of us.

I would recommend boycotting or putting major pressure on the Morning side clinic until such time as they give more information.
 
PrivateInSa said:
The first person was a young healthy white woman, the Paramedic was a also a healthy white man, the nurse was a black lady. So this virus is not limited to black people as some people have been speculating. These people have been active among all of us.

I would recommend boycotting or putting major pressure on the Morning side clinic until such time as they give more information.
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As far as my limited medical knowledge goes, I don't think there is any infectious/viral disease that is limited to infecting only people of a certain colour.
 
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