DALLAS, (Reuters) – The United States is issuing new protocols for health workers treating Ebola patients and a rapid-response military medical team will start training even as Americans’ anxiety about the spread of the virus abates with 43 people declared risk free.
The government’s new guidelines, which were set to come out at 7 p.m. EDT (2300 GMT) on Monday, were expected to tell health workers to cover skin, eyes and hair completely when dealing with patients who have the virus that has killed more than 4,500 in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
There have been just three cases diagnosed inside the United States, a Liberian man, Thomas Eric Duncan, who died in Dallas, Texas, on Oct. 8 and two nurses who treated him and are now themselves patients. Among those released from monitoring were four people who shared an apartment with Duncan and had been in quarantine.
The old guidelines for health workers, based on World Health Organization protocols, said workers should wear masks but allowed some skin exposure. The virus is spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids and tissue of infected people and it is not airborne.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health infectious diseases unit, said the two nurses “did not do anything wrong. Period,” and that new protocols would come out within hours to a day.
“The way that was written was a risk for the nurses,” Fauci told a “town hall” meeting sponsored by Washington news radio station WTOP. “They went by the protocol. They got infected.”
