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Pentagon plans Ebola domestic-response team of medical experts to aid doctors Pentagon plans Ebola domestic-response team of medical experts to aid doctors
(35 minutes later)
The Pentagon announced Sunday that it would create a 30-person team of medical experts that could quickly leap into a region if Ebola cases emerge, providing support for civilian doctors who might lack proficiency in the deadly virus or other infectious diseases. The Pentagon announced Sunday that it will create a 30-person team of medical experts that could quickly leap into a region if new Ebola cases emerge in the United States, providing support for civilian doctors who lack proficiency in fighting the deadly virus.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, responding to a request from the Department of Health and Human Services, ordered the Pentagon’s Northern Command, which has a prime focus on protecting homeland security, to compile a team of five doctors, five trainers and 20 nurses to head to Fort Sam Houston in Texas for high-level preparations to respond to any additional Ebola cases beyond the three confirmed in the country. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered the Pentagon’s Northern Command, which has a prime focus on protecting homeland security, to send this new team to Fort Sam Houston in Texas for high-level preparations to respond to any additional Ebola cases beyond the three confirmed in the country.
The training will begin within the next week, according to Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon’s spokesman. Kirby called the move “an added prudent measure to ensure our nation is ready to respond quickly, effectively, and safely in the event of additional Ebola cases in the United States.” The announcement came as federal health officials tried to calm the nerves of Americans rattled by Ebola’s arrival on U.S. soil. In Texas, dozens of health workers and others who came in contact with the lone man to die in the United States from Ebola are in the final stage of an emotional three-week isolation from the general public, hoping that by early this week they can resume their lives if they show no hint of the virus.
As laid out in the Pentagon’s official statement, this team of military medical experts would then be in a “prepare to deploy” status for 30 days, ready to move into any domestic location to assist local doctors if needed. The expeditionary team would not be sent to West Africa, where the virus has spread to thousands of people and more than 4,000 have died. “To be on the safe side, we stay home. . . . In my community, people used to come in and out of my house. Because of all the news [about Ebola], no one comes around,” Aaron Yah said in a telephone interview from his two-bedroom Dallas apartment, where he and his wife, Youngor Jallah, and their four children have cloistered themselves, skipping work and school until health officials assure them they are safe.
The military action came as top U.S. medical officials tried to calm the national fervor over Ebola and also call for more expertise and training to fight a virus that the overwhelming majority of local doctors and hospitals are not prepared to handle. Jallah’s mother was engaged to Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who died Oct. 8 in a Dallas hospital. “People don’t have education about it, and if they knew we didn’t touch anything [in her apartment], maybe they be different,” he said.
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, appeared on the Sunday talk shows, noting that there are just four medical facilities — in Maryland, Nebraska, Montana and Georgia — that are equipped to treat Ebola patients. U.S. medical officials also called for more expertise and training to fight a virus that the overwhelming majority of local doctors and hospitals are not prepared to handle. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, appeared on the Sunday talk shows, noting that there are just four medical facilities — in Maryland, Nebraska, Montana and Georgia — that are equipped to treat Ebola patients.
“We need to have more than just the four in which you have people who are pre-trained so that you don’t come in and that’s the first time that you start thinking about it,” Fauci said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”“We need to have more than just the four in which you have people who are pre-trained so that you don’t come in and that’s the first time that you start thinking about it,” Fauci said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“We may not even need any more, and we hope we don’t,” Fauci added. “In case there are more cases, we want to make sure there are people who are pre-trained, pre-drilled over and over and have the right protocol going.” Fauci also said that previous protocols for health-care workers handling potential Ebola patients were based on standards given by the World Health Organization and left some areas of skin exposed and potentially put medical workers at risk, in part because the protocols were intended for countries that are less technologically advanced. On ABC’s “This Week,” Fauci vowed that new safety standards will require that all skin be covered when providing medical care for patients with Ebola.
He said that the first Dallas nurse who contracted Ebola, Nina Pham, was “stable and she’s comfortable.” He predicted that she would in the “reasonable future” walk out of the hospital in good health. Many of the dozens of other medical professionals who, like Pham, helped treat Thomas Eric Duncan, the lone person to die in America from Ebola, are approaching their 21-day window of monitoring to see if they can receive an all-clear notice that they have not contracted the virus. He also said that the first Dallas nurse who contracted Ebola, Nina Pham, was “stable and she’s comfortable.” He predicted that she would in the “reasonable future” walk out of the hospital in good health.
Some lawmakers continued the call for restricting air travel from West African countries, a suggestion that President Obama has said could make the situation worse. Meanwhile, the Spanish government announced Sunday that a nurse who contracted Ebola while caring for two priests with the disease was given a preliminary bill of good health after being administered a human serum from antibodies of those who have survived after contracting the virus.
“What we need from members of Congress are constructive proposals based on science and medical expertise, not based on politics,” Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pa.) said on “Meet the Press,” suggesting congressmen were playing into fears about the virus. Despite the apparent control health officials have over Ebola’s spread, military officials decided to take no chances and are now constructing the equivalent of a medial SWAT team. Five military doctors, five trainers and 20 nurses will begin training at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio within the next week, according to Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon’s spokesman.
Republicans continued to criticize the selection of Ron Klain, a political operative whose résumé includes stints as chief of staff to Vice Presidents Al Gore and Joe Biden, to coordinate a national Ebola strategy. Kirby called the move “an added prudent measure to ensure our nation is ready to respond quickly, effectively, and safely in the event of additional Ebola cases in the United States.”
“Mr. Klain is not a doctor, he’s not a health-care professional, he doesn’t have background in these issues,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “We don’t need a White House political operative, which is what Mr. Klain has been. What we need is presidential leadership. The person who needs to be on top of this is the president of the United States.” The military medical experts would then be in a “prepare to deploy” status for 30 days. U.S. officials have said that the incubation period for Ebola is 21 days. The expeditionary team would not be sent to West Africa, where the virus has spread to thousands of people and more than 4,500 have died.
Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a spokesman for U.S. Northern Command, said members of the medical team could directly provide care to Ebola patients. The military team would work in support of civilian physicians.
The team will operate on a “72-hour tether,” meaning that each member must be ready to be en route to an Ebola site within 72 hours if the Obama administration decides to deploy them, Davis said.
“These are not first responders,” he said. “These are people who would fall in upon a hospital or medical facility where a case or cases had already been identified. They could come in and provide an additional level of support, expertise and assistance.”
In his television appearances, Fauci offered another reason for why the Texas hospital was unprepared for handling Duncan when he arrived there in late September. He said that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was operating off WHO protocols that were adopted for handling Ebola outbreaks in the deserts and forests of African nations.
“They did it in the bush. It wasn’t when you were giving people intensive care” in hospitals, he said. “And it became very clear right away that we needed to modify that protocol.”
In Texas, the family of Amber Vinson, the other nurse who contracted Ebola, released a statement explaining that health officials repeatedly cleared her to fly from Cleveland back to Dallas because she was symptom-free — her elevated temperature, according to the statement, did not occur until the day after she landed in Dallas.
“Suggestions that she ignored any of the physician and government-provided protocols recommended to her are patently untrue and hurtful,” the Vinson family statement said. Billy Martin, the high-profile lawyer whose clients have included Monica Lewinsky’s family, has been retained to provide legal advice to Vinson.
Virtually all people who had contact with Duncan have had their lives upended.
Cooped up with his family for almost three weeks, Yah said there have been difficult times. Occasionally he took the children to play in the yard beside their Dallas apartment building, but never with others.
A thunderstorm knocked out electricity for two days, and a broken refrigerator made for hungry children. When Yah told the leasing office at the apartment complex about the refrigerator, the manager refused to send a repairman into the apartment, Yah said. Instead, he offered the family the use of a refrigerator in an empty apartment on the same floor. Yah refused.
“If they are not safe to come into our apartment, it is not safe for someone to go into the apartment next door after us,” Yah said. “We don’t know who will be going in there.”
For the most part, the family has relied on donations, although the groceries from the Red Cross were underwhelming.
“Some of the food was expired,” he said, ticking off items such as juice, cereal and applesauce. “Some didn’t even have expiration dates.”
Once they get a letter from the CDC declaring them Ebola-free, Yah and his wife will return to work at local medical facilities as nurse’s aides. The children, all younger than 11, will probably return to school as soon as they can, with the same note in hand.
On Sunday, Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas issued a formal apology in ads in the state’s newspapers, echoing a statement that Daniel Varga, the clinical director of the hospital’s parent company, made last week about the hospital’s initial missed diagnosis in the Duncan case.
“As an institution, we made mistakes in handling this very difficult challenge,” the hospital said in its letter to the public. “We did not correctly diagnose his symptoms as those of Ebola. For this, we are deeply sorry.”
Wesley Lowery and Missy Ryan contributed to this report.