CDC says strategies used by Firestone might work elsewhere
October 22, 2014
Innovative measures have limited the spread of Ebola in a part of Liberia where Firestone Liberia Inc. had established an effective health care infrastructure, according to a report in this week’s CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). Similar measures may be helpful in slowing the Ebola epidemic in other parts of West Africa.
“I had a reporter call me,” said an attendee at this week’s American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) annual Fall Conference, held in Arlington, VA. “He said he had spent three hours at the Congressional Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) hearing last week, where CDC Director Tom Frieden was grilled, and not once was OSHA or NIOSH mentioned, according to this reporter. He wanted to know why.”
USA Today reports that “Hospital workers treating Ebola patients should wear double sets of gloves, disposable hoods with full face shields and special masks, according to strengthened guidelines issued” last night by the CDC. CDC Director Thomas Frieden “said all health workers also should undergo ‘rigorous training’ and practice in putting on and taking off PPE in a systematic way that reduces their risk of infection.
Ebola featured prominently in the EHS-related news featured on ISHN this week – including an article on how employers can prepare to safeguard their workers from the illness. In other news. OSHA opened the comment period on its PELs update and federal agencies joined forces with a top telephone carrier to reduce communications tower worker deaths.
Here’s breaking news about the Ebola outbreak from various news sources: A Texas hospital health worker who may have handled Thomas Eric Duncan's fluid samples has been quarantined on a cruise ship in Belize -- another reminder of the widespread fears of the deadly virus.
In a message that will resonate across the country, the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH) and the New York State Nurses Association are urging employers in their state to make Ebola preparedness a top priority.
On the morning of Oct. 14, the second healthcare worker reported to the hospital with a low-grade fever and was isolated. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirms that the second healthcare worker who tested positive last night for Ebola traveled by air Oct. 13, the day before she reported symptoms.
The nurse in Texas stricken with the Ebola virus, the first transmission of the disease in the United States, seemed to have taken all the precautions needed to protect herself from Ebola, according to press reports.
An Ebola diagnosis for a healthcare worker at Texas Presbyterian Hospital who cared for a patient with the disease has the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) scrambling to determine how she was exposed despite wearing a protective gown, gloves, mask and shield.
On October 2, 2014, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued guidelines to airlines on stopping ill travelers from boarding, managing and reporting onboard sick travelers, protecting crew and passengers from infection, and cleaning the plane and disinfecting contaminated areas.
