Health Care Workers' Hazard: Cloth Based Masked Face Masks

Infection in the workplace is now becoming a major concern as new epidemics of disease spread worldwide facilitated by the ever increasing global transportation network. The recent and urgent concerns over Flu, Ebola, Measles and Polio highlight the need to protect health workers.

A recent study published the British Medical Journal focuses on the inadequacy of current medical practices. The study of Clinical respiratory illness (CRI), influenza-like illness (ILI) and laboratory-confirmed the spread of respiratory virus infection and highlights the the problems with cloth face masks.

"We have provided the first clinical efficacy data of cloth masks, which suggest HCWs should not use cloth masks as protection against respiratory infection. Cloth masks resulted in significantly higher rates of infection than medical masks, and also performed worse than the control arm. The controls were HCWs who observed standard practice, which involved mask use in the majority, albeit with lower compliance than in the intervention arms. The control HCWs also used medical masks more often than cloth masks. When we analysed all mask-wearers including controls, the higher risk of cloth masks was seen for laboratory-confirmed respiratory viral infection."

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"A cluster randomised trial of cloth masks compared with medical masks in healthcare workers"
BMJ Open 2015;5:e006577 doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2014-006577

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ACLU demands Christie give legal reason for quarantining nurse who's tested negative for Ebola

Public health concerns raised over the fear of the spread of Ebola has caused at least three states: NJ, NY and IL, to institute a mandatory quarantine of potentially exposed workers. Today's post is shared fromnj.com. TRENTON — The American Civil Liberties Union is demanding that Gov. Chris Christie provide more information to the public about how the state came to the conclusion that mandatory quarantine of healthcare workers was medically necessary, saying it has “serious constitutional concerns about the state abusing its powers.” The civil liberties group’s demand came after a nurse who had been under quarantine after arriving at Newark International Airport on Friday tested negative for Ebola on Saturday. Currently, the nurse, Kaci Hickox, remains in New Jersey state custody over her objections, published in the Dallas Morning News and the objections of the international aid organization, Doctors Without Borders, for whom she’d worked in Sierra Leone. “Ebola is a public health issue and the government’s response should be driven by science and facts and not by fear. We must treat our medical workers who put...

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3 Liberian Health Workers With Ebola Receive Scarce Drug After Appeals to U.S.

Three Liberian health care workers who have contracted Ebola received an extremely scarce experimental serum on Friday at a hospital outside the national capital, Monrovia, a Liberian health official said Saturday. The official, Tolbert G. Nyenswah, an assistant minister of health and social welfare, would not say if any of the three were doctors. The drug, a mix of monoclonal antibodies called ZMapp, has been tested in animals, but has not been studied for safety or effectiveness in humans. It arrived in Liberia on Wednesday after appeals by leaders there to top officials in the United States and a letter from President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia to President Obama. Mapp Biopharmaceutical of San Diego, which provided the drug, said the “available supply of ZMapp has been exhausted.” Mr. Nyenswah, who picked up the drug when it arrived at the airport and took part in a meeting to discuss which patients should be selected, said the three recipients had signed consent forms stating that they understood the risks and released all parties involved from liability. He said he did not know how the patients were doing since receiving the drug. If the treatment works, Mr. Nyenswah said in an interview earlier in the week, “and we can save the doctors here, especially those senior medical doctors that are infected with the virus, then Liberia can be a place to do a mass trial with the drugs.” Liberian health officials requested the serum after it was...

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Ebola Guidance for Airlines

Interim Guidance about Ebola Virus Infection for Airline Flight Crews, Cleaning Personnel, and Cargo Personnel Overview of Ebola Virus Disease Ebola virus disease (also known as Ebola hemorrhagic fever) is a severe, often-fatal disease caused by infection with a species of Ebola virus. Although the disease is rare, it can spread from person to person, especially among health care staff and other people who have close contact* with an infected person. Ebola is spread through direct contact with blood or body fluids (such as saliva or urine) of an infected person or animal or through contact with objects that have been contaminated with the blood or other body fluids of an infected person. The likelihood of contracting Ebola is extremely low unless a person has direct contact with the body fluids of a person or animal that is infected and showing symptoms. A fever in a person who has traveled to or lived in an area where Ebola is present is likely to be caused by a more common infectious disease, but the person would need to be evaluated by a health care provider to be sure. The incubation period, from exposure to when signs or symptoms appear, for Ebola ranges from 2 to 21 days (most commonly 8-10 days). Early symptoms include sudden fever, chills, and muscle aches. Around the fifth day, a skin rash can occur. Nausea, vomiting, chest pain, sore throat, abdominal pain, and diarrhea may follow. Symptoms become increasingly severe and may include jaundice (yellow skin), severe...

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US Aid Workers Headed to Atlanta for Ebola Care

Today's post is shared from nytimes.com and concerns infectious disease in the workplace. When two U.S. aid workers infected with Ebola arrive in Atlanta from Africa, they will be whisked into one of the most sophisticated hospital isolation units in the country. The specialized unit at Emory University Hospital was opened a dozen years ago to care for federal health workers exposed to some of the world's most dangerous germs. Now it's being pressed into service for the two seriously ill Americans who worked at a hospital in Liberia, one of the three West Africa countries hit by the largest Ebola outbreak in history. One of the aid workers is due to arrive Saturday, and the second a few days later, according to officials at the hospital. They are traveling in a private jet outfitted with a special, portable tent designed for patients with highly infectious diseases. It will be the first time anyone infected with Ebola is brought into the country. U.S. officials are confident they can be treated without putting the public in any danger. The Emory hospital unit is located just down a hill from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is one of about four such units around the country for testing and treating people infected with dangerous, infectious germs. The unit has its own laboratory equipment so samples don't have to be sent to the main hospital lab. Located on the ground floor, it's carefully separated from other patient areas, said Dr. Eileen Farnon, a Temple University doctor who formerly worked at the CDC and led teams investigating...

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Ebola Virus Disease Confirmed in a Traveler to Nigeria, Two U.S. Healthcare Workers in Liberia

Viral exposure in the workplace could have fatal consequences. This Health Advisory is shared from cdc.gov.

Nigerian health authorities have confirmed a diagnosis of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in a patient who died on Friday in a hospital in Lagos, Nigeria, after traveling from Liberia on July 20, 2014. The report marks the first Ebola case in Nigeria linked to the current outbreak in the West African countries of Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. Health authorities also reported this weekend that two U.S. citizens working in a hospital in Monrovia, Liberia, have confirmed Ebola virus infection. These recent cases, together with the continued increase in the number of Ebola cases in West Africa, underscore the potential for travel-associated spread of the disease and the risks of EVD to healthcare workers. While the possibility of infected persons entering the U.S. remains low, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advises that healthcare providers in the U.S. should consider EVD in the differential diagnosis of febrile illness, with compatible symptoms, in any person with recent (within 21 days) travel history in the affected countries and consider isolation of those patients meeting these criteria, pending diagnostic testing. Background CDC is working with the World Health Organization (WHO), the ministries of health of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, and other international organizations in response to an outbreak of EVD in West Africa, which was...

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Fear of Ebola Breeds a Terror of Physicians

Healthcare professional face serious and fatal virus infections overseas. The conditions contrated within the course of thier employment may be deemed compensble under the Workers' Compensation even though they extra-jurisdiction exposures. Today's post is share from nytimes.com

Eight youths, some armed with slingshots and machetes, stood warily alongside a rutted dirt road at an opening in the high reeds, the path to the village of Kolo Bengou. The deadly Ebola virus is believed to have infected several people in the village, and the youths were blocking the path to prevent health workers from entering. “We don’t want any visitors,” said their leader, Faya Iroundouno, 17, president of Kolo Bengou’s youth league. “We don’t want any contact with anyone.” The others nodded in agreement and fiddled with their slingshots. Singling out the international aid group Doctors Without Borders, Mr. Iroundouno continued, “Wherever those people have passed, the communities have been hit by illness.” Health workers here say they are now battling two enemies: the unprecedented Ebola epidemic, which has killed more than 660 people in four countries since it was first detected in March, and fear, which has produced growing hostility toward outside help. On Friday alone, health authorities in Guinea confirmed 14 new cases of the disease. Workers and officials, blamed by panicked populations for spreading the virus, have been...

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