COLUMBUS, Ohio – While reminding Ohioans that the risk of contracting the Ebola virus in Ohio is small, the state is issuing additional safety recommendations for care providers and health department officials and responding to the concern of nurses after it was announced that a Texas nurse who tested positive for the virus had visited northeast Ohio.
EXTRA: Ebola facts
Officials say many precautions are being taken after they learned that 29-year-old Amber Vinson recently visited the Akron area before being diagnosed with Ebola. They stress that Vinson showed no symptoms when she visited Tallmadge over the weekend and then flew back to Dallas from Cleveland before being diagnosed with Ebola.
People infected with Ebola aren’t contagious until they get symptoms and officials say Ohio has no cases of Ebola. Nevertheless, the Ohio Department of Health issued additional recommendations for dealing with Ebola to health across the state late Wednesday night.
“The…guidelines are being recommended out of an abundance of caution to take strong measures to protect Ohio residents. It has become clear that we cannot be too careful in efforts to contain the spread of this deadly disease,” said Dr. Mary DiOrio, state epidemiologist and interim chief of the ODH Bureau of Prevention and Health Promotion.
The recommendations call for anyone who has any direct physical contact with an infected person, including brief contact such as a handshake, without personal protective equipment be quarantined for 21 days.
People who have not had direct contact, but have been within a three-foot radius of the “index case” — such as adjacent passengers in an airplane or car — for a prolonged period of time should take their temperatures and check their symptoms twice daily, at least once observed by a public health official, for 21 days after the last contact.
Those without direct contact but in the vicinity of the patient should be notified and should monitor their symptoms.
Anyone who develops an oral temperature of 100.4 degrees or greater or symptoms such as muscle aches, weakness, vomiting, diarrhea or bruising/bleeding, should seek medical evaluation and testing.
The guidelines were developed in consultation with Ohio infectious disease experts and are based on recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The head of a union that represents more than 9,000 Ohio nurses says Gov. John Kasich address concerns expressed by the union’s members about the readiness of Ohio’s hospitals, nurses and healthcare workers to handle an Ebola outbreak.
The nurses responding to a survey expressed “great concern” and asked for additional training, support, and resources, Ohio Nursing Association CEO Lori Chovanak said.
Chovanak says she told Kasich early Tuesday evening that healthcare facilities should take three steps:
Conduct practice drills, including rapid assessment and identification of patients, proper isolation and appropriate notification of the health department for further direction. Provide additional training, including use and removal of protective equipment, and take measures to make sure proper supplies are available.
Kasich assured Chovanak both the Ohio Hospital Association and the Ohio Department of Health have been contacted and instructed to completed the steps as soon as possible, she said.