Not that long ago, Ebola seemed a world away.
Ebola — the sound of the word spoken hints at something foreign and terrifying — was not considered by the average American to be an American problem. Ebola happened somewhere over there. To them.
In March of this year, an outbreak of the potentially deadly virus struck West Africa. As it has spread from country to country, hitting hardest Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, Ebola has sickened more than 9,000 people, according to a recent count by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
More than 4,500 of those infected have died.
To illustrate the seriousness of the current epidemic in West Africa, three separate outbreaks in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, all occurring in 2012, sickened a comparatively small group of 53 people, killing 20 of those infected. The largest outbreak prior to 2014 was in 2000-2001, when 425 people were sickened in Uganda. More than half of them died.
The wildfire-paced spread of the current Ebola epidemic in West Africa has been chronicled for months in disturbing images and stories of suffering scanned daily by millions of Western magazine and newspaper subscribers as they drink their morning coffee.
But Ebola did not truly arrive on America’s doorstep until Sept. 30, when a Liberian man, Thomas Eric Duncan, became the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the United States after he fell ill during a visit with family in Dallas. Duncan died earlier this month.
From Duncan, the virus spread to two Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital nurses, who became the first people to contract Ebola in the United States.
Since then, hand-wringing — and hand-washing — over an outbreak of Ebola in the United States has spread across the country faster than the speed of the virus itself.
Dozens of people who had contact with Duncan and with the two nurses were placed in quarantine and scores more were monitored by health professionals for signs of illness.
President Barack Obama recently named an “Ebola czar”; several states have established 24/7 “Ebola hotlines”; hospitals and healthcare facilities are on high alert for people fitting the profile of someone who might be sick with Ebola; and on Tuesday the U.S. said anyone arriving in the country from the stricken West African countries must come through one of the five major U.S. airports where special screening for those passengers has been set up.
But what are the real chances of the Ebola virus finding its way to this area?
Most hospitals, even smaller regional facilities, are being trained in detecting and dealing with potential Ebola cases in a community setting.
While any hospital in that follows the U.S. Centers for Disease Control’s infections control recommendations and can isolate a patient in a private room can care for a person infected with Ebola, four hospitals in the Chicago area have staff with Ebola-specific training and are able to care long-term for patients sick with the virus. Chicago’s O’Hare Airport — one of the busiest in the nation — is also among those screening passengers.
“While the Ebola situation continues to evolve, our hospitals, health systems and public health agencies are all learning from the experiences in Dallas, Atlanta and Omaha to be prepared for any potential Ebola cases in Illinois,” Illinois Hospital Association President and CEO Maryjane Wurth said.
Recent lessons learned include updated procedure for removing and putting on personal protective equipment and handling medical waste, for instance.
“We do not handle Ebola routinely, so it’s a process,” said Arnold. “Unfortunately, it’s something we are still learning, but with each situation we are learning more.”
Early detection and patient isolation along with thorough “contact tracing” — locating and monitoring those who had contact with the infected person — are key to managing Ebola if the virus were to emerge in Illinois.
“There is a lot of concern out there,” Arnold said of the American public’s reaction to Ebola. “One thing to keep in mind is that Ebola is not considered an airborne virus, it’s not like influenza. Ebola is something spread through bodily fluids, very close bodily contact.
There is no FDA-approved vaccine currently available for Ebola, but experts are working on it, according to the World Health Organization. Early detection, rehydration and symptomatic treatment improves chances of survival and a range of blood, immunological and drug therapies for the patient infected with Ebola are under development.
Counteracting the grim predictions of Ebola’s continued spread through West Africa, there are signs elsewhere in the world that give hope to the notion that the virus can be managed, even eradicated.
In the U.S., the scores of people in quarantine and under monitoring in Texas were cleared earlier this week after no symptoms of Ebola became apparent during a 21-day monitoring period, and, in Spain, a nurse’s aide infected with the virus has recovered.
Perhaps the most encouraging news came earlier this week out of Nigeria. The country was declared by the World Health Organization to be Ebola-free, putting to rest fears of an “apocalyptic urban outbreak” in Nigeria’s largest city, Lagos, where many people live in crowded, unsanitary slums. Last week, the organization announced Senegal was also rid of the virus.
“Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country and its newest economic powerhouse. For a disease outbreak, it is also a powder keg,” according to the World Health Organization.
The group credits a massive push by government and wealthy private citizens to educate the public about the virus and intense tracking of individuals believed to have had contact with someone sick with Ebola to the country’s quelling of what could have been a catastrophic outbreak.
“This is a spectacular success story that shows Ebola can be contained,” it said.
The unspoken message seems to be: If they can do it, we can do it.
— Bre Linstromberg Copper can be reached at 217-245-6121, ext. 1022, or on Twitter @JCNews_bre.