"It could happen at one time or another and it wouldn’t be surprising if we had a case eventually come to King County”, said King County Epidemiologist Dr. Meagan Kay.
With a confirmed case of Ebola in Dallas, and a suspected case in Honolulu, local health authorities are pressing ahead with preparations.
The State Department of Health has just released new flyers in multiple languages to be sure immigrant communities are alert to the danger.
“It's one of those diseases that is transmitted by close contact, direct contact with somebody who's infected,” said Dr. Kay. “They have to have direct contact with their blood and bodily fluids.”
The current Ebola outbreak is concentrated in the countries of West Africa. So Dr. Kay is advising every health care provider to ask where their patients have been.
“’Have you traveled to any of the areas where the Ebola virus is occurring in West Africa, Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea in the last 21 days,’ she wants them to ask patients even on routine visits.”
But she emphasizes that Ebola, while deadly, doesn’t spread easily like the flu or measles.
“Actually measles is like an 18 on the communicability scale and Ebola is like a 1 or a 2,”she said.
Research confirms that a measles patient will infect 18 people on average, an Ebola patient just 2. Which is why identification and isolation can be very effective in containing the virus.
KIRO
