Photo Credit - CDC
NOTE: For far more complete coverage of the Ebola outbreak in Western Africa you’ll most certainly want to check in with Crofsblog several times a day, as he is doing a phenomenal job covering breaking events there.
# 8417
Not unexpectedly, the World Health Organization confirmed yesterday that at least two cases of Ebola infection have been confirmed in Liberia.
While obviously a concerning geographic expansion of the outbreak beyond the borders of Guinea, WHO spokesperson Gregory Hartl noted this morning on Twitter that the Liberian cases were all exposed in Guinea, before traveling to that country.
Excerpts from the WHO announcement follow:
Ebola Haemorrhagic Fever, Liberia (Situation as of 30 March 2014)
30 March 2014 – The Ministry of Health (MoH) of Liberia has provided updated details on the suspected and confirmed cases of Ebola Haemorrhagic Fever (EHF) in Liberia. As of 29 March, seven clinical samples, all from adult patients from Foya district, Lofa County, have been tested by PCR using Ebola Zaire virus primers by the mobile laboratory of the Institut Pasteur (IP) Dakar in Conakry. Two of those samples have tested positive for the ebolavirus. There have been 2 deaths among the suspected cases; a 35 year old woman who died on 21 March tested positive for ebolavirus while a male patient who died on 27 March tested negative. Foya remains the only district in Liberia that has reported confirmed or suspected cases of EHF. As of 26 March, Liberia had 27 contacts under medical follow-up.
In accordance with the International Health Regulations (IHR, 2005), the MoH of Liberia is communicating regularly with WHO and neighbouring countries to help coordinate and harmonise surveillance, prevention and control activities.
Response activities within health care facilities include strengthening infection prevention and control (IPC) at the Foya Hospital, the provision of additional personal preventive equipment (PPE) and medical supplies to support case isolation and clinical management and training for health care workers in IPC. Health care workers are receiving training on EHF; 50 clinicians from 5 hospitals in Montserrado County received training on 27 March. PPE and medical supplies have also been sent to Bong and Nimba Counties which border Guinea.
As this is a rapidly changing situation, the number of reported cases and deaths, contacts under medical observation and the number of laboratory results are subject to change due to enhanced surveillance and contact tracing activities, ongoing laboratory investigations and consolidation of case, contact and laboratory data.
As @WHO notes in their twitter messaging overnight, two of the most recently diagnosed cases in Guinea are healthcare workers, highlighting the need for vigilance in infection control procedures during this outbreak.
Reports of nosocomial transmission of VHF (Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers) are a reminder that many healthcare facilities – particularly in developing countries – often work with a limited supply of basic disposable infection control supplies like masks, gloves, and gowns.
More sophisticated isolation procedures - such as Airborne Infection Isolation Rooms (AIIR) as might be found in the United States and Europe - are a luxury few hospitals in the developing world can afford.
Out of necessity, Infection control advice tends to be more basic and mindful of limited resources, such as is provided in the following WHO interim guidance document.
March 2008
This document provides a summary of infection control recommendations when providing direct and non-direct care to patients with suspected or confirmed Filovirus haemorrhagic fever (HF), including Ebola or Marburg haemorrhagic fevers. These recommendations are interim and will be updated when additional information becomes available.
Download document
