An Obama administration health official said Sunday that U.S. protocols on Ebola failed because they originally were intended for African field hospitals, while the White House came under another round of attacks for its refusal to restrict travel from nations suffering epidemic outbreaks.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the original Centers for Disease Control and Prevention instructions for dealing with the virus were taken from the World Health Organization’s protocol for Africa, where conditions are much different from those in U.S. hospitals.
Two nurses caring for an Ebola patient flown into the U.S. from Africa have contracted the virus as a result of those flawed rules, and dozens more people are under observation or could be threatened by contact with those nurses.
“The answer is that the protocol that was originally recommended was a protocol that’s a WHO protocol that’s best fitted for out in the field. It doesn’t cover every single aspect of your skin,” Dr. Fauci said on “Fox News Sunday.”
“That worked in the field,” Dr. Fauci said. “What’s very clear now, if you’re in an intensive care setting, doing things you would never do in the bush or in the field in Africa, very invasive-type procedures, that that is not the optimal way.”
Officials at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital took out full-page ads in two newspapers Sunday to apologize for “mistakes” in their treatment of Ebola patient Thomas Duncan of Liberia, who died Oct. 8 after flying to Dallas to visit family.
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Ebola: key signs, symptoms, treatment and prevention
source: washington post
