Ebola checks expand; nurses get training
WASHINGTON — The federal government is closing a gap in Ebola screening at airports while states from New York to Texas to California work to get hospitals and nurses ready in case another patient turns up somewhere in the U.S. with the deadly disease.
Under the rule going into effect today, air travelers from the West African nations of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea must enter the United States through one of five airports doing special screenings and fever checks for Ebola. A handful of people had been arriving at other airports and missing the checks.
A total of 562 air travelers have been checked in the screenings that started Oct. 11 at New York’s Kennedy airport and expanded to four others last week, Homeland Security officials said. Four were taken from Washington’s Dulles airport to a local hospital. None had Ebola.
There are no direct flights from the three nations into the U.S.; about 150 fliers per day arrive by various multi-leg routes. About 6 percent of them were coming through airports that don’t have the new Ebola screening, federal officials said.
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said with the change, “we currently have in place measures to identify and screen anyone at all land, sea and air ports of entry into the United States who we have reason to believe has been present in Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea in the preceding 21 days.”
In Texas, Gov. Rick Perry designated two special Ebola treatment units to take any future patients in his state, site of the only three cases diagnosed in the United States during this outbreak.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new guidelines Monday to better protect health care workers. CDC officials demonstrated the recommended techniques Tuesday at a training session for several thousand health care workers in New York City.
The new guidelines call for full-body garb and hoods to protect health care workers’ necks; rigorous rules for removal of equipment and disinfection of hands; and a “site manager” to supervise the putting on and taking off of equipment.
The CDC cannot require hospitals to follow the guidance; it’s merely official advice.
In California, nurses met with Gov. Jerry Brown to seek better protective gear.
“We hope to God that it never comes to California,” said RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of the state’s largest nurses’ union and National Nurses United. “But if it does, we want to make sure our nurses have every safeguard.”
