[HLTH]Researcher isolated after possible Ebola exposure

teefleur

Veteran Member
CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/02/19/ebola.exposure/

Researcher isolated after possible Ebola exposure
From Barbara Starr
CNN



WASHINGTON (CNN) --A civilian Army researcher at Fort Detrick, Maryland, is in isolation after possibly being exposed to the Ebola virus, Army officials said Thursday.

The researcher accidentally pricked herself with a needle that contained a weakened form of the Ebola virus last week while she was injecting mice with the virus as part of a research effort.

The woman has shown no signs of the fatal illness, but will remain at Fort Detrick for up to 30 days of isolation.

Local government officials have been notified, but no one else is believed to have been exposed.

The Ebola virus, named for the river in Africa where it first struck nearly 30 years ago, causes high fever, a rash, and bleeding from the internal organs.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the incubation period is between two and 21 days, but a small number of people who have been exposed have been found not susceptible to serious effects. In addition to exposure through a cut, scrape, or injection, it can be passed person-to-person through body secretions.

Fort Detrick, about 30 miles from Washington, traditionally has been known for its germ warfare research. In recent years, the facility's biomedical mission has included a role in the investigation of anthrax bioterror attacks on the U.S. Capitol in October 2001.

It is home to the Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, and houses the main research lab for the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.


And a note here... I heard this reported on ABC news this evening and if I'm not mistaken, Peter Jennings said the worker
went home and returned the next day feeling ill.

If she has Ebola, was she contagious???
 

CanadaSue

Membership Revoked
Oh the poor woman...

A needle stick with Ebola virus is as hot an exposure as you can get. Now the article mentions a WEAKENED virus used in research. Her outcome at this point, will depend almost 100% on how weak it was. Ebola needle sticks result in death - period; when the virus is at full strength. It naturally weakens over the chaind of transmission - later 'generations' of victimes have progressively better outcomes which allow frantic public health efforts to stop further spread.

She'll be in the slammer at Detrick, by all accounts a very unpleasant experience - especially emotionally. She'll most likely require conunselling coming out - most do.

10 days is the general incubation period & you become infectious just about when you yourself break with symptoms. It takes direct contact with a pateint - bloos contact so it's unlikely she'd have passed this on. If she has, it would be to one or a few people ar most & believe me - they will have turned her life upside down to determine that.

She has my prayers & then some.

It's a horrible disease, a horrible death.
 
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