Wednesday, October 15, 2014

How to spread Ebola

Obviously farmers are not in charge of protocols to keep the Ebola virus from spreading in the United States.

The officials in charge are transferring a patient with Ebola virus from a hospital in Texas to one in Atlanta.

Any farmer would know it's foolish to transfer a sick pig from one barn to another.

The same stupidity was evident in 2002 as SARS spread when patients and staff were moved from hospital to hospital in Toronto. Forty-four people died.

And now comes word that one of the Texas hospital nurses that dealt with an Ebola patient got on a plane, potentially exposing every passenger in that sealed-air space to infection.

One wonders whether hospital staff shower in and shower out, changing clothes each time, to keep the virus contained. I'll bet not.

What these health care people need on staff are some veterinarians and farmers who have practical experience with infectious disease outbreaks.

Incidentally, Ebola can spread through a herd of pigs, so one hopes farmers and veterinarians are taking care that nobody who might be infected into near their barns.