Ebola Virus Disease: Experience and Decision Making for the First Patients outside of Africa

Abstract

David Stephens and colleagues describe their experience of treating patients with Ebola virus disease at Emory University in the United States.

Fig 1. The SCDU.

(1) The private patient rooms resemble intensive care unit (ICU) rooms, with adjustable beds, intravenous (IV) fluid drips and monitors. Procedures a patient could need, from mechanical ventilation to hemodialysis, can be performed in the unit. (2) Medical staff who are providing direct patient care use a locker room to change into full-body protective suits and masks, which shield them from blood and bodily fluids. (3) Family members are able to speak with patients through glass windows in the unit; patients have access to phones and laptop computers. The windows also allow observation of procedures and detection of contamination events. (4) A dedicated laboratory that has the capacity to perform blood counts, routine chemistries, blood gas measurements, urinalysis, and tests for a variety of infectious agents was built specifically for use with the isolation unit. (5) All liquid waste is disinfected and flushed, and disposable waste is autoclaved and incinerated. At the peak of the Ebola patient’s illness, up to 40 bags a day of medical waste were produced. Image credit: Emory University; illustrator: Damien Scogin; licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.