Ebola: American Doctors in Liberia Trying Out New Methods
The recent note of alert sounded by the World Health Organisation said an unprecedented number of healthcare workers are hit by the Ebola outbreak in countries like Liberia.
The WHO notified that more than 120 health workers have died and 240 others have infected so far, and the casualties include 1,552 people who died and infected 3,000 plus as of Aug 26.
Silver Lining
Despite this gloomy picture, a Fox news report on some American doctors who are trying to stay put in Liberia, with a rare determination to volunteer assistance to the Ebola infected, stood out. The report mentioned Jeff Deal, a trained a tropical diseases specialist who has his own perspective as to how Ebola affected should be treated.
In his strategy, what is important is to make the environment safe to treat the patients. So he brought his weapon of choice in a pair of 5-foot high, germ-zapping devices named as "Tru-D Smart UVC."
The American doctor came to Liberia after taking leave from his job -- director of anthropology and water studies at the Center for Global Health at the Medical University of South Carolina. He paid his way to the impoverished Liberia and persuaded the Memphis-based manufacturer of Tru-D Smart UVC to donate and ship two machines with him.
The logic of Jeff Deal's treatment is emitting UVC light at a particular frequency to kill Ebola particles. For him, this is utmost important as so many health care workers and patients are getting infected inside Ebola Treatment Units or ETU. Deal got his decontamination system installed in the isolation wards after his arrival in Liberia. Now, he is hoping if he had hundreds of such units to deploy. One of his machines is up and running at Monrovia's Elwa hospital.
There, the Ebola suspected are observed in an isolation ward for three days. As people get crammed, even a non-infected will get that contagious disease, Deal commented.
Yet another American doctor visiting Monrovia's beleaguered hospitals is Dr Thomas Frieden, who is the director for U.S. Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.
Frieden told FoxNews.com that every new transmission that occurs increases the risk to the community. This crisis can spiral out of control in Liberia unless the world comes together to respond in an unprecedented way, the American doctor observed.