New Ebola Guidance for Providers Will Mandate No Skin Showing; Rapid-Response Team in the Works

New guidelines under development by the CDC for healthcare workers treating Ebola-infected patients will mandate personal protective gear that allows no skin to show, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Sunday.

By Amy Orciari Herman

Edited by Susan Sadoughi, MD

New guidelines under development by the CDC for healthcare workers treating Ebola-infected patients will mandate personal protective gear that allows no skin to show, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Sunday.

Also on Sunday, a Pentagon spokesperson said that a 30-member "expeditionary medical support team" — comprising 5 doctors, 20 nurses, and 5 trainers in infectious disease protocols — would be created to "respond on short notice to help civilian medical professionals" faced with an Ebola crisis, Reuters reports.

Elsewhere, some panic erupted last week amid reports that a Dallas lab worker who may have had contact with Ebola-infected specimens was on a commercial cruise ship. The ship docked at a Texas port on Sunday, and the worker tested negative for the virus.

Finally, Monday marks the end of the 21-day incubation period for the first healthcare workers who treated the index patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, on September 28 at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.

Source:

MEDICAL NEWS | PHYSICIAN'S FIRST WATCH

October 20, 2014