Dr. Kristi L. Koenig, director of Center for Disaster Medical Sciences at University of California, Irvine, said that its important for physicians to be aware of infectious diseases worldwide. She urged her peers to be up to date and pay attention to credible authorities, so that they can rapidly identify and isolate potentially infected patients.
"You have to be prepared regardless of health care setting," Dr. Koenig, a national spokesperson for the American College of Emergency Physicians, said in an interview.
In a paper, Dr. Koenig and colleagues list several actions that emergency physicians should take when treating febrile travelers and remind their peers that several factors, including the globalization of health care, climate change, and rapid international travel "means that microbial threat to the population have increased."
The number of Ebola cases in West Africa continues to grow, according to the latest information from the World Health Organization. A total of 7,470 confirmed cases and 3,431 deaths have been reported in in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, according to the World Health Organization.
Dr. Bell of the CDC said that a couple of Ebola vaccines are in early phases of human trials. “We’re working very hard to accelerate this, but we need to be sure that the vaccines are safe and effective. But this is a very high priority for us.”
Helpful Links:
Information for health-care workers
Latest outbreak information in West Africa
World Health Organization Ebola page
Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy
American College of Emergency Physicians
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