New Ebola clinics useless without more trained staff

[magical thyme]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/20/us-foundation-ebola-workers-idUSKBN0HF06020140920

WASHINGTON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A shortage of volunteers to staff the new Ebola clinics and hospitals the international community is building in West Africa threatens efforts to bring the deadly virus rapidly under control, aid agencies have warned.

“The missing link is staff,” Athalia Christie, deputy for global health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who has just returned from Liberia, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation....

...“Building hospitals and equipping them is great. But unless you have trained personnel to work in them, that is not going to help,” said Rabih Torbay, senior vice president at the global healthcare nonprofit International Medical Corps (IMC).

“Seventeen thousand beds, but who is going to staff them?" asked Torbay, who leads IMC’s Ebola response.

more at link

[B2G]

1. I've wondered this myself

“Seventeen thousand beds, but who is going to staff them?"

[AngryAmish]

2. Look in the latrines

Staff may be disinclined to help.

[magical thyme]

4. I trust you're referring to the recent murders of the aid workers

Yes, aid groups already were having a hard time finding volunteers due to the fear of ebola. That the people you are trying to help may deliberately try to murder you is not going to help with the shortage in any way.

One reaches a point where one thinks, "fine, you're on your own..." Attempted (and successful) murder is a good way to reach that point sooner rather than later.

[Mnemosyne]

3. Heartbreaking situation, likely to cause worse spread. nt

[madville]

5. Eventually the practical thing to do

Will be to seal off the affected areas/countries and let the virus burn itself out. I also don't like the idea of sending thousands of US troops in there when even the trained doctors keep getting infected.

Are survivors immune once they recover? They could staff the care centers with them if they train them quickly.

[magical thyme]

6. survivors are immune at least for a while

which is why they've been trying using their plasma as a treatment, since it contains antibodies.

One of the infected Americans recently brought back (not to Emory, to the other facility) was not doing well until after Dr. Brantly gave him blood, and then he immediately started to recover.

And the Brit doctor who just recovered actually was just flown to the US last week to give blood to to most recently returned American doctor.

Recovery is long and slow, though, as the disease wreaks havoc with your organs and systems, which will make recruiting them for working pretty difficult.

Plus working in hazmat suits, which heat to up to 115 degrees, even in good health the doctors work 1 1/2 hours at the most, before needed 2 hours of recovery time to replenish their body fluids. It leaves their health compromised because it is so hard on the body.

Sealing the borders is virtually impossible. There are too many back roads and paths to walk through.

[B2G]

7. Until it mutates to the point where they're not. nt