New Hanover County agencies, including hospital and airport officials, were paying close attention to recent Ebola concerns and are continuing with normal procedures for now.
While the deadly virus has made its way from West Africa to Dallas, no cases of Ebola have been reported in North Carolina at this time.
New Hanover Regional Medical Center workers were reinforcing a normal policy to collect travel information from patients who show symptoms of infectious diseases and record it in their electronic health records, media relations coordinator Erin Balzotti said Monday, Oct. 13.
“We have not changed any policies,” Balzotti said. “We have isolation protocols in place all the time for any kind of infectious disease. Our staff is well trained in those protocols. There’s a lot of talk about Ebola right now.”
The hospital has used similar procedures to rule out diseases such as tuberculosis and meningitis, she said.
Unlike other contagious diseases, such as the flu, Ebola can only be spread when an infected person has symptoms and if someone comes in direct contact with the infected person’s bodily fluids, health officials have said.
“We think we can really contain it if it does come to our area,” Balzotti said.
The hospital was working with the county health department and other agencies to keep each other informed and help with preparedness, she said.
“Vigilance is what’s important,” Balzotti said.
Prevention and preparedness are key, said Carey Disney Ricks, New Hanover County’s public and legislative affairs director, who noted county agencies were developing a website to provide a common location for information and resources about infectious diseases.
“We want to create this clearinghouse of information so we can keep the public educated about infectious diseases in our community,” she said Tuesday, Oct. 14. “We’re working on that aggressively.”
Wilmington International Airport has no direct international service, and airport officials were unaware of any connecting flights from the Ebola outbreak zones of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, operations director Gary Broughton said Oct. 14.
Passengers traveling from that region into the U.S. would likely arrive through one of the nation’s five biggest international airports – John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, Newark Liberty International Airport, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Washington Dulles International Airport and O’Hare International Airport in Chicago – and be screened for Ebola there, he said.
“Our hope is still if somebody gets out of those countries it’s going to be caught in one of those major airports,” Broughton said.
The Wilmington airport has service to major cities like Atlanta and New York.
If a passenger displays no symptoms on an international flight but becomes ill on the way to Wilmington, the airport would be notified and would contact the county health department, he said.
“Not only do we want to keep that person quarantined until something is decided but we have other passengers,” Broughton said.
Typical health issues seen at the airport include chest pain, heart-related ailments, the flu or air sickness, he said.
While the Wilmington airport has no direction so far to change procedure, officials have had plans in place to address communicable diseases by quarantining the aircraft, Broughton said.
“We’ve never had to use it, thank goodness,” Broughton said earlier. “It’s always a possibility.”
The New Hanover County Health Department has a list of about 80 reportable diseases and conditions it monitors, director David Rice said Oct. 14.
When asked if there were any precautions the public could take, Rice recommended following the same preventative steps as with the flu, such as washing hands and covering coughs and sneezes.
“It’s not so much a concern of preventing it, but (for) those people traveling from affected countries,” Rice said. “The general public is not going to be in contact with those individuals, should not be.”
Thomas Eric Duncan died while being treated for Ebola at a Texas hospital, and a nurse caring for him was infected, national reports have stated.
North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services has been working with medical providers, county health departments and the military to prepare for the possibility of any Ebola cases diagnosed here, and the state Department of Transportation was reviewing response plans.
“From our airports to our sea ports, our transportation network provides international gateways to North Carolina. Our employees, therefore, may be the first to detect a potential Ebola event in our state, which they would report to appropriate authorities for immediate action,” state DOT Secretary Tony Tata said in an Oct. 13 news release.
Carolina’s Poison Control Center has set up an Ebola hotline at 1-800-222-1222.
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