Community Chat

[Qwackertoo]

more info

Rapidly screening for Ebola at U.S. hospitals has just gotten easier thanks to military-funded technology. Salt Lake City-based BioFire announced over the weekend that they had received emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration for hospital workers to use their polymerase chain reaction (PCR) screening machine, the FilmArray, to screen for Ebola.

It’s the same machine that the U.S. military is using to fight the disease in Africa. But until Saturday, the FDA approved FilmArray for Ebola screening for research purposes only in U.S. hospitals.

The Dallas hospital that treated Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who became the first individual to die of Ebola in the United States, but was not authorized to use it to test patients showing symptoms of Ebola.

- See more at: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2014/10/28/New-Rapid-Test-Ebola-Gets-FDA-Approval#sthash.ZkQAO6Mt.dpuf

[QueenDanceALot]

I'm not afraid of ebola OR the flu.

I live in KittyLaLaLand.

[brii]

On 10/30/2014 KittyLouWhoToo said:

I'm not afraid of ebola OR the flu.

I live in KittyLaLaLand.

I'm not afraid either.

[dex]

But what if somehow you had been in contact with an ebola contaminated surface but were unaware...then you start with the symptoms and assume it is the flu and later when you are so sick that you must be taken to the hospital you cpuld potentially infect many people and workers Before you get a diagnosis.

[straykatz]

Examples shared by those attending the meeting include:

—An Ohio patient who thought she had Ebola because her husband had worked in Dallas, but not with the Ebola patient.

—A New Mexico woman who sought ER testing for Ebola because she had visited Africa two years ago.

—Two Alabama patients who worried they were infected after traveling through an airport in Atlanta, the same city where Ebola patients were treated.

Extreme examples.....I don't think these are the norm....while most people I know have concerns about the "possible" spread of this disease they are not worrying or thinking they have it when there was ZERO risk on their part....in fact....I work not far from the Dallas hospital where Duncan was 1st treated and eventually died.

[focksie]

Marp, your OP not only points to the importance of getting flu shots...it also points to the importance of healthcare workers returning from WA following state protocols so that they do not become another confounding factor and a potential hazard to the community.

[dex]

There are so many people from the infected regions coming to the US daily that you never know if you have had contact with someone that is going to become ill.

[NoelSeven]

It's odd that some people here want anyone that ever came near Africa or an ebola patient quarantined, yet they refuse to get a flu shot to protect people around them.

[Marp2]

On 10/30/2014 MomTo2Dogs said:

How about doing what is possible first?

Start with Public Service Messages that educate people. I would think that would be more effective than telling people to get flu shots when many don't want them.

That has been tried and failed miserably.

[NoelSeven]

On 10/30/2014 Marp2 said:

On 10/30/2014 MomTo2Dogs said:

How about doing what is possible first?

Start with Public Service Messages that educate people. I would think that would be more effective than telling people to get flu shots when many don't want them.

That has been tried and failed miserably.

Yes it has. We see examples here every day.